Since the end of the Second World War, our population has more than doubled to 27 million people.

If you never encounter anything in your community that offends you, then you are not living in a free society.

I believe that Canadians have the common sense to see that a better future cannot be built on fragmentation.

We Canadians are not given as a people to great patriotic displays.

An increasing number of Canadians must juggle the demands of work with the need to care for children, or for family members who are ill or too frail to care for themselves. Our programs have simply not kept pace with these societal changes.

Canadians know that our difficulties will not be resolved overnight. They are tired of politicians who pretend they will be.

Governments allocate enormous resources for social programs. And it is true that for many years we have had one of the best social service systems in the world. Yet we are still incapable of meeting the needs of tens of thousands of Canadian families.