Quotes By Stephen Harper

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.

I think the way to change it is to handle issues individually when it's essential to do so.

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

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

Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been.

I just think it would be unrealistic to suggest we're going to eliminate every last domestic insurgent in Afghanistan. Certainly, the history of the country would indicate that's not a very realistic objective, and I think we have to have realistic objectives.

The world is now unipolar and contains o-nly o-ne superpower. Canada shares a continent with that superpower.

The government can only be brought down because it alienates several parties in the House.

We have to remember we're in a global economy. The purpose of fiscal stimulus is not simply to sustain activity in our national economies, but to help the global economy as well, and that's why it's so critical that measures in those packages avoid anything that smacks of protectionism.

I believe very strongly that in this world you have to have values and you have to stand up for your interests and if you don't do those things you're not going to get anywhere.

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 one is supposed to accept without question.

We've got to see a state where the Afghan government can handle its own day-to-day security.

Canada is in budgetary deficit now only because of the recession, only because of stimulus measures, and we will come out of it. We will go back into surplus position when the economy recovers. So there is no need in Canada to raise taxes.

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.

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.

Having hit a wall, the next logical step is not to bang our heads against it.

I think because we're such a trading nation, I think Canadians understand that first and foremost we're part of the global economy.

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.

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.

We're not going to scrap the budget and make up some totally new platform the day after the election. So it's certainly willingness to compromise but we're not going back on the fundamental things we're running on in this campaign.

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.

As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.

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

If Ottawa giveth, then Ottawa can taketh away.

But I've been very clear in this campaign - I don't believe the party should have a position on abortion.

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.

I forget what the relevant American rate is, but I can tell you that our goal is to have a combined federal-provincial corporate tax rate of no more than 25 percent. We're on target to do that by 2012. We will have significantly - by a significant margin the lowest corporate tax rates in the G-7, and that's our - our government's objective.

There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don't think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders.

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.