Gerald Butts
speaker
1,669 appearances
11 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 15 Sep
Gerald Butts’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 3.
Appearances
The only thing you really can control is how you spend your own time.
And
I've had the privilege of knowing a lot of effective political leaders in my life, and the ones that are really at peace with their time, and James, I would put you in this category as well, who are at peace with their time in public office, are those who felt like they really leaned their shoulder into moving the rock they cared about while they were there.
And when that happens, you hopefully get a chance to plan your own exit.
Sometimes you don't.
And the people who are really regretful a year, two years, three years later are the people who kind of wasted time worrying about what was being written about them and whether somebody liked them or not and what the polls said while they were there.
And Lester Pearson.
Yes, the Coote's diaries.
Yeah, well, that's another thing that Jim said to me many, many years ago.
Two other things.
One, when you do leave, try and make your departure useful for the people you leave behind.
Right.
And when you're talking about a prime minister or a premier, the ultimate bar for judging whether or not your departure was useful was whether or not you left your party in a position where they could win the next election.
Right.
And he also said to me he couldn't think of a prime minister in Canadian history who'd left the office thinking they could win another election.
Which is an interesting thing because there's always been speculation about Pierre Trudeau and whether or not he recognized the state of affairs in 1984 or whether he retired thinking that, you know, those lunkheads, I could have beaten them one more time.
But that'll tell you that Jim probably knew what Pierre thought at that moment, and he didn't think he could win another election.
So I think with prime ministers and premiers, with first ministers, it's a very different situation because you have all of the things that James described, which I won't repeat, but you also have the political health of your organization in your mind, and ultimately you're deciding whether
whether or not the party would be better off with you or with somebody else as leader going into the next election.
With ministers, I think it's a combination of how you feel in your own personal heart, whether or not you should continue and whether the people who love you think you should continue or
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