So having a little more of an awareness of what's going on in the rest of the world I think is what many Canadians would hope for Americans.

We have extraordinary women running for us right across Canada, and I look forward to showing that women are needed in positions of power. And I certainly hope that, after people see how effective a cabinet with a gender parity in it is, we're going to draw even more women into politics in subsequent elections.

I'm a high school teacher. I'm someone who stumbles my way through, leads with my chin in some cases, leads with my heart in all cases.

One of the most important things in any leader or in any successful approach is to focus on connecting with people and really listening to them. We shouldn't just be saying, oh yes, the people are protesting. We need to ask them why they are protesting and try and figure out if there is something we can do to bring them in and respond to those concerns. That's not populism - that's being thoughtfully open to the fact that our citizens are allowed to have, and are even justified in having, very real concerns and questions for the people responsible for serving them.

Let's try and bring out the best in all of us and a positive vision of working together to solve big problems, to recognize that, yes, all is not right, things need to be fixed. We're better off solving things by working together than by pointing fingers at other people.

My idea of freedom is that we should protect the rights of people to believe what their conscience dictates, but fight equally hard to protect people from having the beliefs of others imposed upon them.

Ultimately, it is the people who judge, through elections, whether someone governs well or not. It's not up to other politicians to define and determine our colleagues.