First, President Reagan was not enthusiastic. But I built up a relationship with him in other areas and then persuaded him that this was important to us and to me, and that we had to at least be in the process of looking at this seriously.

If your only objective is to be popular, you're going to be popular but you will be known as the Prime Minister who achieved nothing.

Every cabinet minister gets a mission statement from the Prime Minister.

When I appointed the Minister of the Environment to major cabinet status, the Planning and Priorities committee, the signals that that sent through Ottawa were major, because that's what the bureaucracy understands.

This country is made up of small towns and big dreams.

Trudeau's contribution was not to build Canada but to destroy it, and I had to come in and save it.

In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy.