Gerald Butts

I think that that is an honest and open debate that we probably should be having.

And to draw the two topics of conversation together, Peter, is a lot harder to have if one of the provinces that's most affected by that decision

is threatening to leave the country.

So it gets really difficult if the argument on the other side is do what I say or I will shoot the country.

Yeah, thanks, Peter.

And I think this is one of those topics that may look boring to people, but is actually really fascinating because it reveals the way people think about how they approach politics, how they approach getting ready for an election, how they approach governing.

And I think it's a really interesting, some of the best work that I've ever been around has been done by councils like this.

And I would separate them into two groups and then a couple of subsets within each group.

And the most important grouping is whether you're in opposition or in government when you call one.

And for obvious reasons, we spend a lot of time thinking about the types of groups that governments appoint.

But in my experience, I've probably been involved with, I don't know, 20 of these over the course of the time I spent in politics and government.

And by far, the most productive ones were the opposition advisory groups.

And that was because...

Excuse me, as in general, when you're in opposition, you're freer to think outside the bounds of what is politically acceptable on any given day and start to think strategically about where you would want to take the country or in my case, in the first part, my first go around in government, the province.

And it allows you to separate yourself from what has by definition been unsuccessful in the past and

for your party.

Obviously, you're in the opposition benches.

You couldn't have been too successful.

So you need to make some strategic policy changes.

And by far the most successful one I've been involved with was the process we put in place when I was policy director for Dalton McGuinty.