The way life runs through everything, even the tiniest elements of nature - that makes me humble. It's the same humility that causes people at a certain time every day to get on their knees and put their foreheads on the ground in honor of something or someone.

I think there's a God and I know it's not me. I don't have a set of tenets, but I live an ethical life.

He gave life to the breath- oxygen, a simple gas, he transferred into words, ideas, hope.

In fact, Parkinson's has made me a better person. A better husband, father and overall human being.

To be brutally honest, for much of that time, I was the only person in the world with Parkinson's. Of course, I mean that in the abstract. I had become acutely aware of people around me who appears to have the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, but as long as they didn't identify with me, I was in no rush to identify with them. My situation allowed, if not complete denial, at least a thick padding of insulation.

Teenagers blithely skip off to uncertain futures, while their parents sit weeping curbside in the Volvo, because the adolescent brain isn't yet formed enough to recognize and evaluate risk.

I always feel very connected to Canada. My reference for everything is my Canadian background, my life in Canada. Particularly on this issue of refugee immigration: I couldn't be prouder of Canada.