Regarding Harper:
On the single payer universal healthcare system: "We also support the exploration of alternative ways to deliver health care. Moving toward alternatives, including those provided by the private sector, is a natural development of our health care system."
- Stephen Harper, Toronto Star, October 2002.
"It's past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act."
- Stephen Harper, then Vice-President of the National Citizens Coalition, 1997.
"What we clearly need is experimentation with market reforms and private delivery options [in health care]."
- Stephen Harper, then President of the NCC, 2001.
On minorities "You have to remember that west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from Eastern Canada; people who live in ghettos and are not integrated into Western Canadian society."
- Conservative leader Stephen Harper, in Report Newsmagazine, 2001.
On abortion: "While [Stephen] Harper has not promised to raise pro-life or pro-family legislation he has promised to allow such legislation to be introduced by others and to permit free votes..."
- Anti-abortion Web site LifeSite.net, March 22, 2004.
"I have always said that controversial issues of a moral or religious nature, such as abortion, should be settled by free votes of MPs, not by party policy."
- Stephen Harper.
On his oppisition to gay marriage: "I think it's a typical hidden agenda of the Liberal party... They had the courts do it for them, they put the judges in they wanted, then they failed to appeal -- failed to fight the case in court... I think the federal government deliberately lost this case in court and got the change to the law done through the back door."
- Stephen Harper, attacking the Liberals on same-sex marriage by claiming a conspiracy, News Hound, September 7th 2003.
"The Liberals have allowed a handful of tenured judges to create a situation where churches, synagogues, mosques and temples could be compelled to perform marriages that violate their own moral codes."
- Stephen Harper attacking the Liberals on same-sex marriage, News Hound, September 7th 2003. The proposed law specifically precludes any church, synagogue or mosque from having to conduct any marriage which violates their belief system.
"Regarding sexual orientation or, more accurately, what we are really talking about, sexual behaviour, the argument has been made ... that this is analogous to race and ethnicity.... (For) anyone in the Liberal party to equate the traditional definition of marriage with segregation and apartheid is vile and disgusting."
- Conservative leader Stephen Harper, 2003.
On nation unity: "Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan... Collect our own revenue from personal income tax... Resume provincial responsibility for health-care policy. If Ottawa objects to provincial policy, fight in the courts... [E]ach province should raise its own revenue for health... It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta... "
- Stepehen Harper in an "Open letter to Ralph Klein," January 24th 2001.
"It is simply difficult – extremely difficult – for someone to become bilingual in a country that is not. And make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it less bilingual today than it has ever been... So there you have it. As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions."
- Stephen Harper on bilingualism, Calgary Sun, May 6th 2001.
"Universality has been severely reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy... These achievements are due in part to the Reform Party..."
- Stepehen Harper, speech to the Colin Brown Memorial Dinner, National Citizens Coalition, 1994.
"We must aim to make [Canada] a lower tax jurisdiction than the United States."
- Stepehen Harper, Vancouver Province, April 6th 2004.
"A weak nation strategy..."
- Conservative leader Stephen Harper describes Canada's historic foreign policy position of multilateralism.
"Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be."
- Stephen Harper in a 1994 National Citizens Coalition speech.
"A culture of defeat..."
- Stephen Harper, describing the Atlantic provinces, May 2001.
On their support of the Iraq War/Integeration with USA: "This party will not take its position based on public opinion polls. We will not take a stand based on focus groups. We will not take a stand based on phone-in shows or householder surveys or any other vagaries of pubic opinion... In my judgment Canada will eventually join with the allied coalition if war on Iraq comes to pass. The government will join, notwithstanding its failure to prepare, its neglect in co-operating with its allies, or its inability to contribute. In the end it will join out of the necessity created by a pattern of uncertainty and indecision. It will not join as a leader but unnoticed at the back of the parade."
- Stepehen Harper indicating that, if elected, Canada will join the US occupation of Iraq, Hansard, January 29th 2003.
"It was probably not an appropriate term, but we support the war effort and believe we should be supporting our troops and our allies and be there with them doing everything necessary to win."
- Stepehen Harper supporting the US-lead war on Iraq, Montreal Gazette, April 2nd 2003. Harper also called then-Defence Minister John McCallum an "idiot."
"I don't know all the facts on Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans."
- Stepehen Harper, Report Newsmagazine, March 25th 2002.
"Nay."
- Conservative leader Stephen Harper voting against a motion urging the Canadian government not to participate in the US military intervention in Iraq, March 20, 2003.
"Thank you for saying to our friends in the United States of America, you are our ally, our neighbour, and our best friend in the whole wide world. And when your brave men and women give their lives for freedom and democracy we are not neutral. We do not stand on the sidelines; we're for the disarmament of Saddam and the liberation of the people of Iraq."
- Stephen Harper, Friends of America Rally, April 4, 2003.
"Mr. Speaker, the issue of war requires moral leadership. We believe the government should stand by our troops, our friends and our allies and do everything necessary to support them right through to victory."
- Stephen Harper, supporting the American invasion of Iraq, House of Commons, April 1, 2003.
"This government's only explanation for not standing behind our allies is that they couldn't get the approval of the Security Council at the United Nations - a body [on] which Canada doesn't even have a seat."
- Stephen Harper supporting the American invasion of Iraq, CTV's Question Period, March 30, 2003.
"It is inherently dangerous to allow a country such as Iraq to retain weapons of mass destruction, particularly in light of its past aggressive behaviour. If the world community fails to disarm Iraq, we fear that other rogue states will be encouraged to believe that they too can have these most deadly of weapons to systematically defy international resolutions and that the world will do nothing to stop them."
- Stephen Harper supporting the American invasion of Iraq, House of Commons, March 20, 2003.
"Continental economic and security integration" with the U.S. as well as a "continental energy strategy" that should be broadened "to a range of other natural resources."
- Conservative leader Stephen Harper.
"Abrasively neutral."
- Conservative leader Stephen harper on Canada's position on Iraq.
"The time has come to recognize that the U.S. will continue to exercise unprecedented power in a world where international rules are still unreliable and where security and advancing of the free democratic order still depend significantly on the possession and use of military might."
- Stephen Harper, May, 2003, speech to the Institute for Research on Public Policy.
On supporting someone who makes completely wacked out statements: "Rob is a true reformer and a true conservative. He has been a faithful supporter of mine and I am grateful for his work."
- Stephen Harper endorsing Calgary West Conservative MP Rob Anders, who in 2001 called Nelson Mandela "a Communist and terrorist."
