We created the Cabinet Committee on the Environment to review the

When Brian Mulroney spoke of the Cabinet Committee on the Environment, he was not merely describing a political accomplishment — he was recounting an act of foresight, a moment when leadership reached beyond the noise of the present to touch the future. His words — “We created the Cabinet Committee on the Environment to review the environmental implications of all government initiatives. I think what made us successful was the fact that it was a sustained approach. We did something new every year.” — carry within them the spirit of continuity, dedication, and the ancient principle that great change is born not of bursts of passion, but of steady endurance.

Mulroney’s insight speaks to the wisdom of persistence, the slow but sacred labor that shapes civilizations. Too often, humankind seeks miracles in a single decree or law, yet the Earth is not healed by haste. The soil grows fertile only through seasons of care, the river clears only after years of restraint. In creating a government body to weigh every decision against the fate of the natural world, Mulroney gave structure to conscience. He transformed environmental awareness from a fleeting idea into a living rhythm within the machinery of governance — an act as noble as it was necessary.

In the language of the ancients, his was an act of stewardship. The philosophers of old — from Confucius to Marcus Aurelius — taught that leadership is the art of tending the unseen, of thinking not only of today’s comfort but of tomorrow’s survival. Mulroney’s “sustained approach” recalls this very wisdom. It is a rebuke to those who seek applause without legacy, to those who plant no seeds because they will not live to see the harvest. True leadership, he reminds us, is to build institutions that outlive the builder — to create habits of care so deeply woven into the nation’s heart that even as faces change, the commitment endures.

Consider the story of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan woman who began by planting a single tree. She faced mockery, imprisonment, and violence, yet she continued — one sapling, one season at a time. Years later, her Green Belt Movement had planted tens of millions of trees, restoring life to land once barren. Like Mulroney’s committee, her success came not from one act of grandeur, but from repetition, faith, and constancy. The same truth echoed through ancient Rome, where the aqueducts and roads that still endure were not the result of one year’s effort, but of disciplined construction across generations. So too, environmental renewal — whether in Africa or Canada — depends on this rhythm of perseverance.

There is a quiet power in doing “something new every year.” It is the rhythm of the craftsman who returns to his workshop each dawn, the poet who writes daily despite the silence, the farmer who plants anew after every storm. In a world that worships immediacy, Mulroney’s approach is revolutionary — for he understood that the salvation of the Earth requires patience as much as passion. The Cabinet Committee on the Environment was more than a council; it was a covenant — a promise that progress would not end with one generation’s will.

His words also carry a moral challenge to all who live in this age of climate peril: Sustainability is not an event; it is a discipline. The Earth cannot be healed by campaigns alone, but by systems that guard her every day, by minds that think of her before profit, by policies that measure their worth in centuries. Mulroney’s method, though political in form, was spiritual in essence — it was about weaving the Earth’s welfare into the moral fabric of human decision.

Let us then take his lesson to heart. Whether in our governments, our businesses, or our daily lives, we must adopt the sustained approach. Do not despair when your first effort seems small, nor boast when one victory is won. Instead, rise each year — each season — and do something new for the world. Plant a tree, teach a child, change a habit, improve a system. For the strength of a people, like the health of the Earth, is not forged in moments of triumph but in the constancy of care.

So may we remember the teaching hidden in Mulroney’s words: that endurance is the truest mark of love. To sustain is to believe that the future is worth our labor. To act each year for the good of the Earth is to speak the oldest prayer of humankind — that life, in all its forms, may continue.