Best 15 quotes of Bob Rae on MyQuotes

But it's a stigmatized problem, and it's a silent problem. This has to end. Suicide is not just a personal tragedy, it's a key issue of public policy and facing up to it requires political will.

Forgiving is all; forgetting is another thing.

I hear [my Twitter followers] say, you know, 'Bob Rae, you're an asshole'. [...] I'm working my way and trying to represent the people and speaking in Question Period and here we have vox populi, the thoughtful man on the street, 'you are an asshole!'. Thank you very much. I read it on my Twitter and I get up and ask a question.

Love is stronger than hate.

The old boy network is still too strong in Canadian business. A visit to the Toronto clubs at lunch stands in about as great a contrast to the multicultural, multiracial subway underneath as can be humanly imagined. This is not healthy.

We have it all. We have great diversity of people, we have a wonderful land, and we have great possibilities. So all those things combined there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

As a country that is less than a superpower, Canada cannot rely on its muscle to make itself heard. Our influence comes from a capacity for wisdom, from being a trusted source of information, knowledge, and judgement on some of the most difficult issues facing the world.

As the issue of security becomes more important in people’s midst, the party and leader that offer the deepest sense of understanding and competence will win support. At the same time there is always the risk that negativity, fear, and nastiness may become issues in their own right. People may tire of it, wanting more optimism and more hope.

Canada is an Aboriginal country as well as a settler country. We rarely see ourselves that way, but it is past time that we started doing so. The fact that settlers are in a significant majority does not take away from the simple fact that when Europeans made first contact with the northern half of North America, there were millions of people already here. From the Beothuk in Newfoundland – a population completely wiped out by disease and violence – across every corner of Canada to the far west and north, Canada’s first people had built a civilization, a way of life thousands of years old and rich in diversity. They were not “savages” (as they were called, in French and English), nor were they “ignorant wretches”, nor were they less than people. They had developed complex societies with distinct languages, systems of governance; they were real people with a real way of life.

Canada’s political parties spend a few years in opposition and then govern as if it’s permanent payback time.

I see a Canada that is determined to increase the franchise of its citizens and that is at the forefront of expanding the rights of people across the globe. It is a country able to see beyond a world divided by privilege, wealth, and colour to one determined by equal rights and the sense that a good country is one where people care about what happens to one another. It is a country whose politicians will embrace individuals’ successes, the creation of wealth, and a never-ending effort to open up opportunities for its residents. Prosperity, innovation, social justice, and sustainability will be at the centre of every political debate.

The best leaders are well-rounded, able to draw on whatever skills suits the particular situation at hand. They are determined, insightful, shrewd, and, most important, able to command the attention of the people around them.

The result may not be decisive, and a majority may prove elusive. But that could prove more of an opportunity to Canadians than they might think. If an election means that our leaders have to compromise, engage with one another as respected colleagues and opponents – rather than as caricatures to be derided and ignored – and work within the realities of the present day, it means they have to listen to the issues that Canadians bring forward. If not, and any one person is left to shape the country according to his or her own vision, then Canadians have to ask: What will that vision entail?

The status quo is unacceptable, and it is costly. Whatever money the province may feel it is losing with revenue sharing will be more than paid off by the revitalization and empowerment of Aboriginal communities. To put matters of dignity in blunt economic terms: healthier communities cost less to taxpayers.

This points to a central tension in our very idea and practice of democracy – it is not a simple appeal to the rule of the majority. It is also about respecting that the power of the people is limited by what’s fair to minorities, what’s reasonable, and by what’s legal and constitutional.