No kid graduating in a political science class in Canada should not understand what's happened to income inequality since the 1970s, period. And then, what do we do about it? It's the biggest problem out there, in all western liberal societies.

The Conservatives hold rural places because they keep bombarding rural Canada with, "Liberals are a bunch of urban, metropolitan snobs who don't care about you and want to leave you dead by the roadside." We've simply got to go out and say, "they're lying to you about us. We actually care about you more than the other guys, and we're not going to pander to your prejudices - we're going to give hope to your kids."

Cynics who say power is all that counts in politics forget that power without ideas is just improvisation.

We can't afford to waste people. We can't afford to have people think the game is over before it's begun. We've got to be saying to the Canadian people: you can't tax cut your way to a productive 21st-century economy. You can talk that talk, but it's not going to give you a productive 21st-century economy, because it will scythe apart the public goods that make prosperity possible. That's what we've got to say, and so we shall.

Liberals don't want any part of Canada left behind. I used to give speeches on and on and on about the fact that we don't want to have a country where you think, "my kids have got to move to the city if they're going to have any kind of future." We've been saying that, and we've not got through.

Public service does not necessarily mean service in the House of Commons, and public service is not synonymous with partisan political activity. It comes in a thousand colours, but the common denominator is: it's not about me - it's about we.

We must not lose sight of the fundamental issue of policy which is that people who come to the country on visa status must never be abused.