That simple ensemble captured the essence of where she has been and where she is, and signals that she will soon be moving on.

A stylish and elegant lady, turning 63 this November, it's not difficult to believe she was once crowned Miss Toronto. What is surprising, perhaps, is that she earned that title 45 years ago.

But Taylor's beauty never overshadowed her brains. As co-host, she launched CTV's Canada AM broadcast and later became the popular and respected host of the network's investigative series W5. She later switched to CBC as a broadcaster and eventually, as chair of the board - an executive role that she later assumed for Canada Ports Corp. and The Vancouver Board of Trade.

And of course, Taylor has made her mark on West Coast politics, first as a Vancouver alderman and then as an MLA and provincial cabinet minister.

She's never let glamour detract from the seriousness of her work. Her dark-rimmed eyewear frames that intent.

So back to the green shoes - an obvious colour choice to illustrate a "green" budget.

In it, Taylor unveiled North America's first broad-based carbon tax, which is "revenue-neutral."

As of July 1, British Columbians will pay an extra 2.4 cents per litre of gasoline and eventually 7.2 cents more per litre by 2012. The tax will apply to other fossil fuels, including natural gas, propane and home-heating oil. However, the B.C. government won't keep a penny of it. Lower-income residents of the province will receive an annual "Climate Action Credit" of $100 per adult and $30 per child this year, with a five-per-cent increase scheduled for next year. Taylor also cut income-tax rates at the personal and corporate levels, along with lowering the tax rate for small businesses.

While the carbon tax will gather and distribute revenue, its prime goal is to encourage the use of more environmentally friendly energy sources and to help reduce B.C.'s greenhouse-gas emissions by 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020.

Along with overseeing labour negotiations with more than 300,000 public-sector workers that resulted in contracts without any strikes, Taylor considers the carbon tax a "highlight" during her three years as B.C.'s finance minister. She has announced won't run for re-election during next year's provincial election and was preparing to bow out of cabinet in June.

Although a long list of groups - from municipalities and northern communities to truckers and taxi drivers - wanted exemptions from the charge, there won't be any associated with the initiative that will "make a difference to our climate," says Taylor.

The carbon tax is also an initiative that falls under the banner of public policy, which runs as a thread throughout her career. Her goal has always been to "try and make a difference."

And she has, through sheer determination, despite the years of hearing whispers that her successes were due to looks or luck, that she has somehow not deserved them.

Born in Toronto in Nov. 16, 1945, she entered the Miss Toronto pageant during her final year at Weston Collegiate. Her winning prize was a choice between cash and university tuition. Taylor chose the latter and attended the University of Toronto, from which she graduated a bachelor's degree majoring in English literature.

Around that time that she made her TV debut as co-host of Toronto's CFTO teen show, After Four, which later became a network series. Several Toronto-market television gigs followed until Taylor would make history on Sept. 11, 1972 when she took the airwaves as the co-host of CTV's new series, Canada AM, the country's first live weekday morning current-affairs program.

But despite gaining a national profile, Taylor played second fiddle to Percy Salzman, Canada's first TV weatherman, previously on CBC - and earned half his salary.

That's the way it was back then, says Taylor, who took a "few bruises and knocks" early in her career.

"When I first started doing television interviewing, when shows were often co-hosted by a man and a woman, it was assumed the guy would do the tough political stuff and I'd do the recipes. I had to work past that and show that I not only had the ability but the interest to do other things," she explains.

"But with each job, I almost had to start all over and prove it."

Within a year of sharing hosting duties on Canada AM, Taylor was chosen by CTV as the first female host of W5.

It was a journalist's dream job, taking her around the world to such places as the Middle East to cover the Arab-Israeli (Yom Kippur) war in October 1973, and to South America to report on the military coup that year that ousted Chilean President Salvador Allende from power. The W5 assignment significantly raised Taylor's national profile and made her a household name. But it also showed her how public-affairs broadcasting could make a difference in people's lives by informing them, as well as satisfying her own interests.

"I love interviewing people," she says. "I'm quite curious and like trying to see how they got there and why - what's the context, and where they're going."

In 1976, three years after joining W5, she moved to Vancouver where she married the city's then-mayor, Art Phillips (her second marriage), and continued to work in television - this time for CBC on West Coast programming.

Eventually, Taylor's journalistic interest in politics and "problem solving" drew her to pursuing public office and, in 1986, decided to run for alderman on Vancouver's 10-member city council after being recruited by a man who has played a major role in her life.

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, who appointed Taylor to the senior finance post when the provincial Liberals were re-elected to a second term in 2005, served as Phillips's executive assistant in the mayor's office and is also godfather to the couple's daughter, Samantha. Campbell was aiming for the Vancouver mayor's job. Both earned election.

Taylor would eventually display political shrewdness years later when, appointed CBC chair in 2001, she fought to have the senior position based in Vancouver.

"One of CBC's biggest challenges is to move out of the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal axis, and really reach out to people across the country," explains Taylor, who notes that it was the first time in the public broadcaster's history that the chair's position was based in the West.

The job also kept her home base in Vancouver and closer to the B.C. scene, which became important when Campbell came calling again in 2005.

This time, as B.C.'s 34th premier, he wanted her to run as a Liberal candidate as his government sought a second term in the May 17 election. For Taylor, the party - a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives - was a good fit for the woman who describes herself as fiscally conservative and a "small-l" liberal on social policy.

So, she agreed to Campbell's request, joined the party, won the nomination and the provincial riding of Vancouver-Langara. A month later, after Campbell's government was returned to office, Taylor was sworn in as finance minister.

As a keen student of economics, Taylor has infused her passion for public policy into the department as illustrated in her four budgets.

This year's, of course, focused on climate change and introduced the carbon tax. Her first budget addressed seniors and reintroduced a low-income supplement for older British Columbians. The second budget focused on children; the third one, on housing and homelessness.

But there will be no more budgets, no more constituency work, after next May's election. At least Taylor can rest assured she made a strong mark during her time in cabinet. Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughan Palmer says, "Her pending departure deprives the cabinet of its most independent, most respected and best-liked member." That's quite a trifecta of compliments.

What's next?

"I honestly don't know," she says. "Everyone thinks I have a grand plan, and have had all kinds of job offers."

There has been speculation she might do the Bill-and-Hillary-Clinton thing and seek Phillips's former job as mayor of Vancouver.

"Maybe at a different time, but at this point I'm saying no," says Taylor.

"It feels like it would be going back since I did two terms in municipal politics and I just feel like doing something new or different."

She hasn't ruled out a return to journalism. But before deciding on her future, she plans to "get some sleep" and relax this summer.

While Taylor and Phillips reside in a condo in downtown Vancouver, they last year purchased "a little place" in Los Angeles where they retreat for "warm-weather breaks."

"I sometimes wish I didn't have this feeling of obligation to contribute, to keep moving, keep learning. While I may change the pace, I don't see myself retiring."

There's one other thing her husband has done that she won't do. Phillips briefly served as a Liberal Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Vancouver Centre between 1979 and 1980.

After criss-crossing Canada while serving as CBC chair, and travelling around the world as a director of the international bank, HSBC, Taylor doesn't fancy the idea of spending about five hours on a plane twice a week flying back and forth between Ottawa and Vancouver. Therefore, the life of an MP is not for her.

Still, Taylor would like to see politics at all levels attract more female candidates, particularly those who may no longer face the demands of raising a family as she did when she entered the municipal scene and her daughter Samantha was only three years old. The stress levels got high when Taylor had to shuttle between daycare and council meetings, which often ran late.

"I've said - way before I became my age - that the untapped resource in Canada is a woman whose family is off on their own and who has lots of skills, whether from the professional world, through volunteering or looking after the house and family. She now has time and we should be actively pulling these women into politics at that point."

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DON'T CALL HER 'GRANDMA'

Carole Taylor and husband Art Phillips have a warm-weather place in California, which puts them in the same country as their children - albeit on the other side of the country. Christopher Taylor, 36, from her first marriage, is a journalist living in New York City while Samantha Phillips, 26, is in her final year of medical studies at Duke University in North Carolina. She's got one grandchild, who is instructed to call his grandmother 'Lola,' the Filipino name for grandmother. ('Grandma' doesn't hold much appeal for her). So after the next election when her political duties are done, she'll spend time with her family including her 77-year-old husband, who has been 'happily' retired for about 15 years.