We're not going to scrap the budget and make up some totally new platform the day after the election. So it's certainly willingness to compromise but we're not going back on the fundamental things we're running on in this campaign.

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.

We're always willing to look at ways NAFTA can work better. But it's a fine line between looking at ways to make it work better and actually starting to open the agreement. I think, if you actually opened the agreement, I think you would get into a negotiation that - that would never terminate.

We'll support the government on issues if it's essential to the country but our primary responsibility is not to prop up the government, our responsibility is to provide an opposition and an alternative government for Parliament and for Canadians.

I don't get into that second guessing of myself publicly.

There's unfortunately a view of too many people in Atlantic Canada that it's only through government favours that there's going to be economic progress, or that's what you look to That kind of can't-do attitude is a problem in this country but it's obviously more serious in regions that have had have-not status for a long time.

I think what everybody believes and agrees with, and to be frank myself, is that the current approach [to the drug trade] is not working, but it is not clear what we should do.