Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state there is no telling where it might lead. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.

You cannot let yourself be defined by the hopes that you will fulfill the darkest wishes of your opponents.

I'm happy when people decide that they are more aligned with me and my party but they should also think about being active and aligned with the parties that disagree with me on certain issues.

We're getting companies to invest in Canada, to expand their workforces, to do more R&D. I think people are looking at Canada and realizing we're a place that is building for the long term and where the world's going to be.

The center has had the challenge of always having to be reasonable, balanced. If you're on the right, you can reach to the right; and on the left, you can reach left. But the center hasn't always sold as well in politics - it doesn't fit neatly on a bumper sticker. But what we're seeing is that citizens in countries around the world are realizing that, no, it's more important to be responsible and optimistic and thoughtful about the solutions and not feed knee-jerk, negative emotions.

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.

The big frustration for me is that people are growing so cynical about politics that you see them basically shrug and say, "Oh, yeah. Who cares that Harper is shutting down debate? Who cares that he's building prisons, and everything? All the politicians are the same so why should we be outraged about one rather than the other?" And my point is Canadians need to wake up. This is not the Canada they'd recognize if they looked closely.