Quotes by Stephen Harper

• 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.
• Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been.
• 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.
• On the justification for the war, it wasn't related to finding any particular weapon of mass destruction.
• That's my personal view I would say most in my caucus agree with that but there are some who don't and I've always said that on these kinds of moral issues, people have the right to their own opinions.
• The government can only be brought down because it alienates several parties in the House.
• The Leader of the Opposition's constitutional obligation - the obligation to Parliament - it's the reason we did the merger! - is to make sure Canadians have an alternative for government.
• There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don't think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders.
• Universality has been severely reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy.
• We have in this country a federal government that increasingly is engaged in trying to determine which business, which regions, which industries will succeed, which will not through a whole range of economic development, regional development corporate subsidization programs.
• We should have been there shoulder to shoulder with our allies. Our concern is the instability of our government as an ally. We are playing again with national and global security matters.
• 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.
• 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.
• It's the government's obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to govern.
• The world is now unipolar and contains o-nly o-ne superpower. Canada shares a continent with that superpower.
• If you want to be a government in a minority Parliament, you have to work with other people.
• Whether Canada ends up as o-ne national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion.
• After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which o-ne is supposed to accept without question.
• But I've been very clear in this campaign - I don't believe the party should have a position on abortion.
• 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.
• First of all, I can't forget my first responsibility - which is to be the Leader of the Opposition and that's to provide an alternative government.
• Having hit a wall, the next logical step is not to bang our heads against it.
• Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society... It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff.
• I don't believe an Alliance government should sponsor legislation on abortion or a referendum on abortion.
• I don't get into that second guessing of myself publicly.
• I have no difficulty with the recognition of civil unions for non-traditional relationships but I believe in law we should protect the traditional definition of marriage.
• 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.
• I think the way to change it is to handle issues individually when it's essential to do so.
• If Ottawa giveth, then Ottawa can taketh away.
• I've always been clear, I support the traditional definition of marriage.
• I do not intend to dispute in any way the need for defence cuts and the need for government spending cuts in general. I do not share a not in my backyard approach to government spending reductions.