I have a broad view that we have to try and get to yes on projects. On economic projects anybody can say no. My child can say no. But I think the hard thing to do is to figure out how you get to yes and you protect the environment.

We have the resources the world needs. We can build a path for them to get there. That's that delicate balance that we find.

Here Hillary Clinton is probably the most qualified person based on experience to ever run for president of the United States, and then this guy gets into the race, Bernie Sanders, and suddenly everybody goes, Look at him. He's a real contender -

I would ask that people judge us, judge me, based on our record, based on what we actually did.

I just think about how many women in their workplaces have been working to get a promotion, and they look around, and then this guy comes.

I'm not a believer that you should set quotas for these things, because I think what happens is no matter how qualified the woman is who gets the job, people will say she [Hillary Clinton] shouldn't have gotten it. She only got it because she's a woman. That is the problem with quotas.

We all say things when we are trying to get elected.

To put it in context, the federal government was, at the beginning [of the Vancouver meeting], talking about a $15-per-tonne floor for carbon emissions. We're at $30 a tonne, so we're already double that. But our economy is growing at a faster rate - three per cent of GDP is our projected growth in British Columbia.

We do need the federal government to share information with us. We need local governments to increase supply. We need affordable places for people to live.

We know taxes slow down economic growth, so if you add a carbon tax you have to also minus other taxes. You can't take more money out of people's pockets. I don't think you can build a consensus in this country about environmental policy if you're going to make people poor.

How are we going to know what impact that has on the greenhouse gas emissions? How are we going to hold everybody accountable for doing their part?

hy is it you can impose a new tax and keep your economy growing? Only if you cut other taxes by exactly the same amount. The problem with carbon taxes around the world has been you dump a new tax onto the economy and it's just adding more tax.

One of the things I do know about investment from around the world and job creators: they won't come to British Columbia if our attitude is well, no, or all of our processes are just going to be a way of making sure you can't get to yes. They'll just go somewhere else. Those jobs will be somewhere else.

I think we should be worried about the fact that we have become, as a society, very focused on the way people look, the way they dress. I do think we should worry about that because we should be worried about content. We should be worried about ideas. We should not be putting form over function.

Our climate leadership team has recommended it go up and I would say there's always going to be upward pressure to raise the carbon tax. Remember, we're already double what the only other province who has a carbon tax is at right now, Quebec - they peg it at about $15 a tonne.

I'm conscious of competitive issues, but at the same time the recommendation they make is that we protect citizens by not adding to the overall tax burden of the province.

It is time for conservatives to do what they do best and insist that a wasteful, inefficient government program gets off the books. Small government and the death penalty don't go together.