Gerald Butts

So to me, the opposition was the most productive in my time.

And we did a similar exercise for Trudeau.

And it both gives you ideas, but it also recruits people, right?

So I'll give you an example from the Trudeau era, which ended up in what I think is the most effective and hopefully the most durable policy

of Trudeau's time in office, and that's the Canada Child Benefit.

That was really, excuse me, it had its lineage going back to the early 1970s in Canada.

Different governments have tried different versions of it.

The Harper government tried a version of it that was sort of a flat rate for everybody, regardless of income.

But there was this very modestly known economist at the University of Laval named Jean-Yves Duclos, who was working on various models of that.

And that's how he...

both we got the idea and we got a pretty stable Quebec minister for what turned out to be a three-term government for the Trudeau era.

So when you're looking for new ideas and when you're looking for new people, my view has always been put those two things together and you never know what you come up with.

On the government side, and I think...

James is right in the best sense of the term.

These are political management exercises.

So and again, I don't mean that cynically either.

I think there are certain issues that become either too hot to deal with from solely the government benches.

And that means you need to bring in a broader group of people, some who have been representative of the opposition parties in the past.

That's really important.

But also the broader business community and civil society where you can close the door and say, look, I'm leaving my politics at the door here.