The federal court has not commented on niqab as being a violation of any putative Charter right, but rather has said that the court believes that the policy ought to be anchored in legislation or regulation as opposed to an administrative order from the Minister. We disagree with that. But this is not a Charter ruling.

There's not a word in the Quran or the Hadith that requires that women cover their faces. To the contrary, the only requirement is that they uncover their faces when they're doing the haj.

Sometimes the government has to answer questions with ambiguous language.

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

Many, many times I would shake my head in dismay at the goings-on in the House of Commons, but that never caused me to lose my fundamental faith in the values of our parliamentary institutions.

I was very clear in saying that what I characterized as politically correct Liberals are unnecessarily inflaming what should not really be a contentious matter. The truth is, if anything we're uniting Canadians on this issue, and I believe uniting Muslim Canadians. And I believe that some folks who you might characterize as politically correct cultural relativists are unhelpfully inflaming - creating contention on this issue where there really is very little.

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.