Stephen Harper

“I think in Atlantic Canada, because of what happened in the decades following Confederation, there is a culture of defeat that we have to overcome.”

“If you want to be a government in a minority Parliament, you have to work with other people.”

“We'll support the government on issues if it's essential to the country but our primary responsibility is not to prop up the government, our responsibility is to provide an opposition and an alternative government for Parliament and for Canadians.”

“What the government has to do, if it wants to govern for any length of time, is it must appeal primarily to the third parties in the House of Commons to get them to support it.”

“This party will not take its position based on public opinion polls. We will not take a stand based on focus groups. We will not take a stand based on phone-in shows or householder surveys or any other vagaries of pubic opinion.”

“Look, I think the worst case scenario is obvious. I think first of all it doesn't work for very long. It's an unstable government that raises taxes and destroys the image we're building for Canada as a strong place to invest.”

“We got into a recession because the global economy went into the recession and we're a big exporting nation.”

“On the justification for the war, it wasn't related to finding any particular weapon of mass destruction.”

“Canada remains alienated from its allies, shut out of the reconstruction process to some degree, unable to influence events. There is no upside to the position Canada took.”

“Universality has been severely reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy.”

“I've always been clear, I support the traditional definition of marriage.”

“It's the government's obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to govern.”

“My own views on abortion, I'm not on either pole of that and neither of the interest groups on either end of this issue would probably be comfortable with my views.”