Immigrants To Canada

"Three of my ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. It's just that any system of government has it pluses and minuses and it's important to understand the system of government you do live under so that you can protect it."

"“I’d rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous,” she told the Toronto Star."

"Heckling “tunes people out of their democracy,” she says"

"“I was raised to be extremely productive,” May recalls. “That was how my mom would put it; she’d say, ‘I had a very productive day.’ ”"

"“Strategically, as leader of the Green Party and the first elected Green in Parliament, I didn’t want to be in a renovated bank building,” she says. “I wanted to be on Parliament Hill, in a building that screams out at you, this is Parliament!”"

"“Without sounding arrogant,” she says, “I’m good on my feet.”"

"“When women raise their voices to be heard over the noise, they sound hysterical,” she says. “It’s a sexist world. If you lose control over your lower register, you’re going to be seen as a nut.”"

"“I’m one of the few MPs who never has a prepared text for everything I do, because I don’t have a bunch of people telling me what I have to say,”"

"I participate, therefore I am."

"We Canadians think that Canada is a modern, well informed democracy. We look down our noses at the dumbed down content on Fox News and CNN, without noticing that we are rapidly heading in the same direction."

"Of all the deteriorating aspects of Canadian democracy, the lack of concern over the ability of the national police force to interfere in elections is the one that most suggests Third World politics."

"Little wonder that the dumbing down of the political discourse, the attack ads and war rooms reign triumphant. The fifth estate is an enabler in this addiction to political trivia in place of reasoned debate."

"Countries with high voting rates also have high levels of political knowledge."

"The role of the individual MP has been sidelined by the power of the Cabinet, and now by the PM alone."

"Everything we did was done in form and with propriety, and the result of our proceedings is the document [the Quebec Resolutions] that has been submitted to the imperial government as well as to this house and which we speak of here as a treaty. And that there may be no doubt about our position in regard to that document we say, question it you may, reject it you may, or accept it you may, but alter it you may not. (Hear, hear.)"

"Miracles would cease to be miracles if they were events of everyday occurrence; the very nature of wonders requires that they should be rare; and this is a miraculous and wonderful circumstance, that men at the head of the governments in five separate provinces, and men at the head of the parties opposing them, all agreed at the same time to sink party differences for the good of all, and did not shrink, at the risk of having their motives misunderstood, from associating together for the purpose of bringing about this result. (Cheers.)"

"I will content myself, Mr. Speaker, with those principal motives to union; first, that we are in the rapids and must go on; next that our neighbours will not, on their side, let us rest supinely, even if we could do so from other causes; and thirdly, that by making the united colonies more valuable as an ally to Great Britain, we shall strengthen rather than weaken the imperial connection. (Cheers.)"

"If we are true to Canada, if we do not desire to become part and parcel of these people, we cannot overlook this the greatest revolution of our times. Let us remember this, that when the three cries among our next neighbours are money, taxation, blood, it is time for us to provide for our own security..."

"The idea of a universal democracy in America is no more welcome to the minds of thoughtful men among us than was that of a universal monarchy to the mind of the thoughtful men who followed the standard of the third William in Europe, or who afterwards, under the great Marlborough, opposed the armies of the particular dynasty that sought to place Europe under a single dominion. (Hear, hear.) But if we are to a universal democracy on this continent, the lower provinces - the smaller fragments - will be "gobbled up" first, and we will come in afterwards by the way of dessert. (Laughter.)"

"I will take leave to read to the house a few figures which show the amazing, the unprecedented growth which has not perhaps a parallel in the annals of the past, of the military power of our neighbours within the past three or four years... From January 1861 to January 1863 the army of 10,000 was increased to 800,000... In January 1861 the ships of war belonging to the United States were 83; in December 1864 they numbered 671... These are frightful figures for the capacity of destruction they represent, for the heaps of carnage that they represent, for the quantity of human blood spilt that they represent, for the lust of conquest that they represent, for the evil passions that they represent, and for the the arrest of onward progress that they represent."

"That is a glorious doctrine to instill into society. (Cheers.)"

"The two greatest things that all men aim at in any free government are liberty and permanency. We have had liberty enough - too much perhaps in some respects - but at all events, liberty to our hearts content."

"We have here no traditions and ancient venerable institutions; here, there are no aristocratic elements hallowed by time or bright deeds; here, every man is the first settler of the land, or removed from the settler one or two generations at the furthest; here, we have no architectural monuments calling up old associations; here, we have none of these old popular legends and stories which, in other countries, have exercised a powerful share in the government; here every man is the son of his own works. (Hear, hear.)"

"This is a new land - a land of pretension because it is new; because classes and systems have not had that time to grow here naturally. We have no aristocracy but of virtue and talent, which is the only true aristocracy, and is the old and true meaning of the term. (Hear, hear.)"

"Like all of mathematics, game theory is a tautology whose conclusions are true because they are contained in the premises."

"I prize every candle in the darkness of the universe, even if it is not a supernova of blinding illumination."

"Public opinion can become polarized into a bimodal distribution with only a few people in the centre and many more lying toward the extremes. But under such circumstances, democracy will probably break down into civil war, and spatial models of party competition will be irrelevant until order is restored."

"In its Morgentaler decision of January 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the centrepiece of Canada's abortion law, section 251 of the Criminal Code. The court held that it conflicted with section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the 'security of the person'. This ruling radically changed the legal status quo; it was as if Parliament had repealed that section of the Criminal Code without passing a replacement amendment."

"Finally, it should also be noted that the very existence of a bicameral legislature is itself another defence of the status quo."

"There is no iron law here, but there is clearly some tendency for larger-than-necessary coalitions to disintegrate."

"But if politics is an art, it is not like sculpture or painting, where one side acts and the other is passive material. It is more like drama without a script, or dance without choreography - in other words, improvisation. Either player may surprise us again with a new move."

"For the foreseeable future, Canada will have to be functionally bimetric, as well as a bilingual, country."

"I want to illustrate the concept of a solution in mixed strategies with a concrete example using real-world data, but I have not been able to find an appropriate one from Canadian politics."

"'Canadian society' or the 'Canadian nation' cannot decide anything, because no one is in charge."

"Ever since Comte first set the agenda of social science, his megalomania lingers on in sociology, political science, and other disciplines."

"Thomas Flanagan: Well I'm feeling pretty manly today..."

"The foot, the pound, and the pint are all close to the size of many things used in daily life. In contrast, the metre, the kilogram, and the litre are all rather large, and the centimetre, the gram, and the millilitre rather small, for many practical uses."

"Well I think Assange should be assassinated actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something. There's no good coming of this..."

"Evan Solomon: Just for the record that's pretty harsh stuff.."

"Our mental environment is a common-property resource like the air or the water. We need to protect ourselves from unwanted incursions into it, much the same way we lobbied for nonsmoking areas ten years ago."

"America, the great liberator, is in desperate need of being liberated from itself -- from its own excesses and arrogance. And the world needs to be liberated from American values and culture, spreading across the planet as if by divine providence."

"[Culture] Jammers are now mobilizing to repeat the tobacco story in many other areas of life. We’re going to take on the global automakers, the chemical companies, the food industries, the fashion corporations and the pop-culture marketers in a free-information environment …We want auto executives to feel just as squeezed and beleaguered as tobacco executives. We want them to have a hard time looking their kids in the eye and explaining exactly what they do for a living."

"We got rich by violating one of the central tenets of economics: thou shall not sell off your capital and call it income. And yet over the past 40 years we have clear-cut the forests, fished rivers and oceans to the brink of extinction and siphoned oil from the earth as if it possessed an infinite supply. We've sold off our planet's natural capital and called it income. And now the earth, like the economy, is stripped."

"[J]amming a coin into a monopoly newspaper box or liberating a billboard in the middle of the night can be a rather honest and joyful thing to do."

"Here at Adbusters, we decided to tackle the issue head on and came up with a carefully researched list of who appear to be the 50 most influential neocons in the US (see above). Deciding who exactly is a neocon is difficult since some neocons reject the term while others embrace it. Some shape policy from within the White House, while others are more peripheral, exacting influence indirectly as journalists, academics and think tank policy wonks. What they all share is the view that the US is a benevolent hyper power that must protect itself by reshaping the rest of the world into its morally superior image. And half of them are Jewish."

"I've been in the public eye for nine years, and I've gone through different phases with it. At first I loved it. Finally, there's a light shining on me and I've wanted that all this time. Then there were a couple of years where I almost became reclusive because it bothered me so much. The trick is to be able to look at it as something that's ethereal and not real. Fame, or whatever that is, isn't tangible. You can't hang your hat on it. You must be able to sit under your covers and giggle about the nonsense of all of it."

"In television or a movie I bring my own ego and consequently can mess up. In the theatre I learnt very quickly to shut up and listen. Now I am able to get out of my own way."

"It's been more than a show. It's been a wonderful support group. It's a group of people that love each other, that come together every day to try to make America laugh. What better thing is there to do than that?"

"It's odd. Fifty percent of me feels it's the right time to be closing this. The other 50 percent of me is saying it's more than a show. It's a group of people that love each other. It's a group of people that come together every day trying to make America laugh, and what better thing is there to do than that?"

"I'm not as funny as Chandler is. Because Chandler has thirty people writing for him."