“Politics in its more primitive and vigorous manifestations is not a game or a sport, but a form of civil war, with only lethal weapons barred.” – John W. Dafoe
“The public is moved by mood more than logic, by instinct more than reason, and that is something that every politician must make use of or guard against.” – Jean Chretien
“Canada effectively created a political ethos of official pandering and a society of addicts to government largesse.” – Conrad Black
“Accountability of public servants to government, of government to Parliament, and of Parliament to taxpayers can be achieved only if the MPs of all parties support these goals. Parliamentarians must never lose sight of the fact that in a democracy, accountability is the price exacted for the gift of power.” – James MacDonnell
“Does our economic system work? My answer is that the market system, based on free decisions and fair rules, does work better than any other system yet devised. And the job of government must be to provide the rules and the climate that will let the system work.” – Joe Clark
“‘Caring and compassion’ really meant socialism, wealth confiscation and redistribution, taking money from people who had earned it and giving it to people who had not earned it in exchange for their votes and in the name of fairness. Here, truly, Canada has vastly exceeded the United States… ‘Caring and compassion,’ however well-intentioned, would more accurately be called plundering and bribery.” – Conrad Black
“For decades, too many of our business leaders mouthed self-reliant and ruggedly individualistic platitudes while lining up for government preferments like the locusts of feminism and multiculturalism, and the kleptocracy of organized labor.” – Conrad Black
“You’re considered to have a rare kind of social disease if you espouse neo-conservative ideas in Canada.” – Barbara Amiel
“Elections are like dictionaries: They’re all about definitions. The candidate who succeeds in defining the contest — and the contestants — wins; the candidate who gets defined, loses.” – David Frum
“The danger of democracy has always been the danger of an electorate seized by passivity.” – Dalton Camp
“Canada has remained a timid democracy. The establishment that has run our country has proceeded comfortably – not always in the interests of the people, nor indeed of the country itself – supported by Canadians’ deference to authority and a strange willingness to be passive spectators in our own land. We have become what anthropologists call ‘participant observers’.” – Patrick Boyer
“With this run-away growth of the federal bureaucracy (which really now could be called the “civil self-service” because it grows by feeding upon itself), our society is both witness and victim of an escalating invasion of government into every facet of our lives.” – Richard Rohmer
“The Liberals are the party of big government. Under their patron saint, Pierre Trudeau, the federal government went from consuming 30% of national income to 53%. When government devours more than half of a nation’s economic output, government no longer serves taxpayers, taxpayers serve government. Other countries call this socialism. In Canada, it’s termed ‘justice and compassion.'” – Eric Margolis
“Canadians… [may] have the kind of government, and as much freedom, as they want. What is absent here is not just the conditions of liberty, but the desire for it. Liberty may be… a controlled substance in Canada; but its street value is damned low.” – Edgar J. Friedenberg
“As long as our leaders are unwilling to take on totems and taboos, they will continue to obfuscate the moral choices before us and make even more difficult the determination of how governments might actually rise to the challenges. It will take courage to set out these choices, and to propose complex, sometimes difficult solutions.” – Alex Himelfarb
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Chris George, providing reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.
