One of the biggest divides in Canada - I said it in 2006, and I said it right through my political career - is urban-rural. Lots of parts of this country feel entirely left behind. And they're mobilized by, you know, the gun control issue.

I'm very struck by what you can do in a classroom. I've got 200 students. You don't do partisan politics in a classroom, that's not appropriate. But you want to give them a strong sense that these are the issues that matter.

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.

There are all kinds of different forms of public service, but there's no form of public service that can make more difference for more people than partisan political activity.

Patriotism is strong nationalistic feeling for a country whose borders and whose legitimacy and whose ethnic composition is taken for granted.

You can't get back to power by defining your project in negative terms. But it helps to have somebody in office who represents the opposite of what you believe.