What we clearly need is experimentation with market reforms and private delivery options [in health care].

It's the idea that we just have to go along, we can't change it, things won't change. I think that's the sad part, the sad reality traditional parties have bred in parts of Atlantic Canada.

I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.

Paul Martin talks eloquently about defending national sovereignty but the reality hasn't matched the rhetoric. When it comes to the United States, Mr. Martin says he calls them as he sees them, but when it comes to American passage through Canada, he doesn't actually see anything.

But the Progressive Conservative is very definitely liberal Republican. These are people who are moderately conservative on economic matters, and in the past have been moderately liberal, even sometimes quite liberal on social policy matters.

We have to remember we're in a global economy. The purpose of fiscal stimulus is not simply to sustain activity in our national economies, but to help the global economy as well, and that's why it's so critical that measures in those packages avoid anything that smacks of protectionism.

Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it.