Officers Of The Order Of Canada

"[The separate electorates led enfranchised Muslims and members of other sections to] vote communally, think communally, listen only to communal election speeches, judge the delegates communally, look for constitutional and other reforms only in terms of more relative communal power, and express their grievances communally."

"We have seen it other places, that equivalent of religious zeal leading to flouting of the law in a way that could lead to death … Inevitably, when you get that fanaticism, if you will, you’re going to have trouble. ... Are we collectively as a society willing to allow the fanatics to obstruct the general will of the population? That then turns out to be a real test of whether we actually do believe in the ."

"We’re going to have some very unpleasant circumstances. There are some people that are going to die in protesting construction of this pipeline. We have to understand that. ... Nevertheless, we have to be willing to enforce the law once it’s there … It’s going to take some fortitude to stand up."

"Harry Johnson was notorious in his lifetime as a living machine for producing economic literature: during a relatively short career of twenty-seven years, he produced over five hundred academic papers, one hundred and fifty book reviews, thirty-five books and pamphlets, and hundreds of newspaper articles, many of which were written on trains and aeroplanes; so prodigious was his output that articles by him continued to appear years after his death, conveying the uncanny impression that he was still hard at it in Heaven. Moreover, almost nothing he wrote was tossed off. On the contrary, the average quality of his output was astonishingly high, synthesising apparently unrelated contributions by others and restating previous results with a verve that made them stand out like new. But writing was only one of his many activities. He travelled ceaselessly to conferences around the world and lectured at universities up and down Europe, America, Africa and Asia. His frantic energy was fuelled by wood-carving and alcohol, producing the one while listening and consuming the other while writing."

"Central Europe has several recognizably common architectural features that make some towns in Galicia look remarkably like towns in Transylvania and Slovakia; shared musicians—Liszt, Chopin, Mahler, Dvořák, Smetana, Bartók, Kodály; shared writers, such as Musil, Gombrowicz, Koestler, Brod, Mickiewicz, Kafka, Roth, Zweig, Faludy; and some peculiar shared traditions, such as the tiny coffee spoon and the oversweet desserts with whipping cream."

"We can't win this province back - we can't be the government - with a smoking, drinking, paving, glad-handing premier."

"Edmonton isn’t really the end of the world – although you can see it from there."

"I believe instinctively in a God for whom I am prepared to search."

"[Edmonton is a] fine city with too many socialists and mosquitoes. At least you can spray the mosquitoes."

"I’ve been to Vulcan where I’ve been vulcanized, Carbon where you get carbonated and Standard where you get standardized. Ernie Isley’s invited me to Castor … and I’m not looking forward to it."

"The government should be getting out of the business of being in business."

"This all came about through the discovery of a single, isolated case of mad cow disease in one Alberta cow on May 20. The farmer — I think he was a Louisiana fish farmer who knew nothing about cattle ranching. I guess any self-respecting rancher would have shot, shovelled and shut up, but he didn’t do that. Instead he took it to an abattoir and it was discovered after testing in both Winnipeg and the U.K. that this older cow had mad cow disease."

"I wasn't surprised that she crossed over to the Liberals. I don't think she ever did have a Conservative bone in her body. Well, maybe one."

"I’m no doctor, but I think that Mr. McGuinty’s got a case of premature speculation."

"You know, my science is limited to the fact that I know that eons ago there was an ice age … I know that for sure. I know that at one time, the Arctic was the tropics. And I guess I wonder what caused that? Was it dinosaur farts? I don’t know."

"There’s an old saying in politics: anyone dumb enough to run for the job probably is too stupid to have it."

"I have some hopes for the future. One of the things I hope the new leader will address is an integrated energy policy, because we need to take advantage of the tremendous brainpower that we have amassed over the years relative to conventional and oil-sands oil and gas, and funnel those energies into alternate forms of energy for the future. By that I mean coal, coal gasification, coalbed methane, solar power, wind power, nuclear power, hydro power, all forms of energy other than conventional and oil-sands gas and oil."

"I couldn't type on it and I still can't type on it, and a lot of my friends can't type on it. It’s hard to type on a piece of glass."

"He is down-to-earth and a grassroots man who actually built the system."

"You have to build an industry. You have to be very nimble, and you have to be connected to your customers, and that can't be done with just one company."

"We have to be realistic about the history of [touch-screen] technology. We have to remember that this is not new — this has been done, this has been tried before."

"All told it is a new world. It calls for new ideas. In Canada it calls for a New Party."

"Plan-less profit-seeking as practiced by the West cannot match the planned export policies of the East."

"What shall it profit us to live in an affluent society if the things we produce and the ways in which we distribute them fail to contribute to the achievement of human dignity and social values?"

"The kinds of homes or communities people live in, the resources available for health, education, and security in old age - all these things are subject to the decisions of rulers we do not elect."

"The fearsome fact of our time is that other elements than the government have assumed the role of directing our affairs. To a very large extent the way we live and the things we live for are determined by the interests of powerful and monopolistic corporations"

"One of the facts of history is that battles do not stay won. Those that matter have to be waged again and again."

"Ideas change the world, but they do it by assuming shape, they do it by taking concrete form."

"Expensive firefighting equipment is rushed to the scene immediately on the sound of an alarm no matter what is on fire. Elaborate freeways in our metropolitan areas, costing many millions of dollars, are available to any motor vehicle. Microwave systems bring to ones television a program or view of an event taking place thousands of miles away. For the same few cents one can send a letter a short distance or across the continent."

"Yet another means by which to distribute more equally the wealth our people create is by an all-out program in the building of homes. Where did we ever get the idea that it is all right for some Canadian children to grow up in slums and others in mansions? If we can find the money - in other words, the raw materials and the men to do the work - to build skyscrapers and luxurious bank buildings in our large cities, if we can afford to maintain an elaborate defence establishment, if we can cope with the social costs that flow from life on the "other side of the tracks," we can well afford the expenditure of public money in programs designed to eliminate every last slum dwelling there is in this country, in programs designed to redevelop our communities, both urban and rural, toward the day when all our people will live in good homes."

"Workers do not try to prevent employers from making contributions to political parties the workers do not support."

"What shall it profit us, unless life in the midst of it all has meaning? When a society spends more on advertising than it does on education, where is it headed?"

"Education is still starved. It is the cornerstone of any civilized society and the sharpest sword in the defence of freedom, but it is still the step child of governments and corporations alike."

"The office of Speaker is almost as ancient as Parliament itself. It emerged in the Middle Ages when the Commons - the ordinary people - of England needed a spokesman in their dealings with the King, someone who would voice their grievances and present their petitions. This was by no means a safe or easy thing to do at that time, and potential spokesman generally had to be pressured into accepting the responsibility."

"If the institutions of parliamentary democracy are worth preserving, the duty to explain them to the people they are meant to serve becomes vitally important."

"For two years now, my office has had the honour and the privilege of sponsoring seminars on the functioning of government in this country for Eastern Europeans. These seminars and exchanges have brought together representatives from such nations as Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republic, Roumania, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Ukraine, all of them anxious to learn what makes a society as diverse as Canada work and how our institutions make it governable."

"The institutions which our ancestors established to to sustain and defend democracy in this country are still with us today, more than two hundred years later."

"The purpose of privilege is not to place parliamentarians above the law, but rather to allow them to carry out their duties independently and effectively, in the national interest."

"Debates must take place in an atmosphere of courtesy."

"Question Period is not part of the legislative process,and has nothing to do with it. It is a means of monitoring the Executive that the Government cannot evade."

"As our parliamentary system now stands, we say that this role of overseeing the Government has probably become the main function of the House of Commons. the purpose of this function is to illuminate the weaknesses in government policies, the errors that may have been committed and the sectors that may have been forgotten, and to suggest alternative solutions."

"A careful and sympathetic sense of humour can also be a great asset when there is need to get out of difficult situations gracefully."

"The very structures, the corridors, the rooms and offices, are eloquent testimony to our past."

"But while the American Constitution was the child of war, ours grew out of discussion, bargaining and negotiation."

"Democracy is not a form of government. It is a political philosophy that can be embodied in various systems of government."

"In the long and dogged crusade that the human race has fought in favor of democracy, the ideal of liberty, of freedom, has always been the goal."

"The House Of Commons has never been a tea-party. It consists of strong-minded, often very idealistic people, who are trying to accomplish something for our country. We are inheritors of an adversarial system and that, in itself, fosters conflict."

"as I became Speaker in 1986, I made a point of setting up a public information office to respond to requests and provide information about Parliament and how it functions."

"On a craggy bluff above the majestic Ottawa River stands the remarkable embodiment of our system of governance: Parliament."

"Everybody skated and played hockey. When I was five, Dad gave me a heavy box for Christmas. When I opened it, there was only a piece of wood. I was so mad! Then he gave me another box, and the skates were there. Dad used to build a rink behind our house every winter. That's where I started playing hockey. From the time I was seven, I used to sleep in all my equipment. That way, I was ready to play in the morning."