I thought very seriously having something more like a normal life where I might have my weekends and evenings off, and be able to read and have a more robust personal life.

Naheed Nenshi is a friend of mine. We - he - knows how close I am to all of the cultural, ethnic, and religious communities in Canada, particularly his own Ismaili community. By the way, the vast majority of Canadian Muslims, particularly Ismaili Muslims that I know, strongly support our government's reinforcement of the public nature of the public citizenship oath.

It's easier for opposition members to condemn the government at the drop of a hat if they don't understand.

I have said explicitly from day one when I announced this policy in, I believe, November of 2011, that I and our government oppose the idea of banning the wearing of the niqab in public.

Rural Alberta is a lot less homogeneous than it used to be, partly because of my immigration policies.

Finally, as I've said, this is - why are you talking about Jewish women's wigs and people wearing turbans? That has nothing whatsoever to do with niqab.

You go to a lot of small communities in rural Alberta and you'll find a degree of diversity that probably hasn't existed in terms of immigration for a century - you'll find the Filipino grocery store, and the African Pentecostal church and maybe a mosque. Albertans are pro-immigration; they're also pro-integration. In my years in this province I cannot recall more than a handful of expressions of xenophobia or nativism that I've encountered. It's the land of new beginnings and fresh starts - it is rare Albertans who trace their roots here back more than a generation or two.