Let me take a stab at that. I guess I should say at the beginning that I think primarily I won't be delving into issues of government policy or policy questions. I'll definitely be trying to stay on the correct side of that line, and hopefully we'll take it from there.
But just in terms of the first part of your question, on the economy and the environment, and indeed the economy, the environment, and energy, I believe you're right that people need to think about those as integrated issues. Indeed, I think that's hopefully one of the things I can bring to the Department of the Environment with my background from the Department of Finance and as an economist, because it's going to be difficult in this day and age to move forward without simultaneously considering what the actions we take are doing for the environment but also for the economy.
We do need to think about how we can grow both. How can we have an economy that's strong by virtue of creating clean energy, sustainable energy products, in a way that respects the environment? I don't necessarily see them as trade-offs, that one has to go all for the environment or all for the economy. Indeed, there are balances that need to be struck as one moves forward. But I think it would be inappropriate to think that Canada, for example, would be able to find its way forward without a strong economy and without a strong environment, and energy being such an important part of that equation, I think you need to think about the three of them together.
I think one of the things that comes to mind when you try to assess what the impacts are of what you're doing on the economy and the environment is that you have to understand that we're not a closed economy that's operating in isolation. We're operating, very intensively and in an integrated way, with the United States and our other major partners. So we need to think about the global pressures that are out there and the global interactions that are affecting our economic policies and our environmental policies.
In addition, within Canada, we have to think about not only the federal government's role but the role of the provinces going forward, because they have a significant role to play on environmental matters as well. All of that is to say that the things one brings to economic analysis and thinking about the impacts of policies, one does need to bring through on the environmental side as well.
On the issue of taxation and the environment, I'm really not going to comment on policies, other than to say that when one comes forward with any kind of a policy, whatever it might be, one thing I always look for is whether the objective is clear—what we're trying to achieve—and then whether the instrument we're trying to use is the best instrument to try to achieve that objective, because from time to time people can try to use an instrument that may not be the most appropriate one for a particular policy issue.
I guess my final point on the economy is that obviously one has to be conscious of the economic environment that's out there. What we're witnessing right now is a different economic environment than we might have had a couple of years ago or even several months ago. So I think we do need to think about that, about how policies play out in an economic environment like we're in now--though I agree with your assessment that these are integrated issues.