You're absolutely right that we do have those conversations on a regular basis, but then again, I don't want you to think that we are holier than thou. We have a lot of conflicts within our own family, within our own community. I mentioned a little earlier some of the struggles among the various producers of energy. It's the nature of the beast that we will have people of different views. That's one of the great virtues of the great democracy we live in, that you're going to have differences of opinion, differences of interest, and appropriate institutions that would allow for brokering those differences.
You said it's a political question. Let me answer in a somewhat political way and say the following. First, I believe—and it is my view that a good number of my colleagues share this view—that with all the foibles and the problems we have, we really do live in the finest country in the world. We believe that. It's not just a throwaway line. One of the reasons we believe that is that we have a federation that allows for the give and take and the flexibility that one needs in a country of this gigantic size, where we literally have pockets of people and regions, and we've come up with a system. When I was a young lawyer doing post-graduate work and I was studying the Constitution, I did a course on comparative constitutions, looking at the constitutions of the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany, India--because it's an interesting one--and Canada. The conclusion I came to is that we are truly blessed to have a federation with a parliamentary system.
Now the specific answer to your question. Number one, we have to pay really close attention to the public service as an extremely important resource that bridges changes in government, that bridges changes in political complexion, and I don't think we have been doing that adequately. One of the greatest strengths of Canada in the lead-up to the Second World War and beyond was that we had this professional, independent public service, respected by both opposition and by those in government, where politicians and public servants worked together. I don't see that working nearly so well anymore. We have a public service that has lost a lot of its lustre, we have a public service that is somewhat dejected, and I think we have a public service that has seen artificial barriers being thrown up that I don't think are healthy.
I would say that a good, strong, independent, professional public service made up of the brightest and the best is one way of helping to bridge those transitions.
The second thing I would say is that--and it's easy for me to say, I don't sit in your wonderful crucible of democracy, Parliament--from the outside obviously we would like to see closer cooperation among parties and between parties. You may say I don't live in the real world. I've never been elected. I don't understand. Whether we're facing extreme economic hardship, the way we are now, or trying to come to terms with a national environmental policy that works for all parts of the country, or trying to come to terms with how we deal with terrorism in North America, or whatever the case may be, what we'd like to see is closer cooperation and some of the partisanship jettisoned in favour of really trying to come to terms with the kind of issues we're faced with.
The third thing, I would say, is the relationship between the provinces and the federal government. There have been various times when we have seen it work better. There have been various times when it has been godawful. When you look at all the areas of cross-fertilization, whether it's financial regulations, the debate over whether there should be a national regulator, environmental policy, governance policies, energy policy, in all these areas where there is overlap it is really important that we have the two institutions working together as closely as possible.
That's a very political answer. It may not give you a very satisfactory answer, but when we look at countries around the world, even with some of the problems we have we don't do too badly. We would like to see it work a lot better in some cases, and that's entirely up to you.