A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. But what is the best that we can offer to those who govern? Prayer!
I have a responsibility as an elected governor to govern and when I say govern, that means to make sure that our citizens are safe and we need the federal government to step up and do their job. They need to secure our borders.
I had to watch government fail for 25 years doing consumer reporting before I really saw it because intuitively, the reaction is problem, bring government and government will make it better.
After 2003, we lowered taxes across the board. And by 2004, revenue to the federal government grew. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan cut taxes dramatically. And by the end of the decade, revenue coming in the federal government had doubled.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!
I learnt a lot in government, and I've learnt a lot since leaving government. The kind of journey of being in government is that you start at your most popular and least capable, and you end at your most capable and least popular.
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
The government is not your salvation. The government is not your road to prosperity. Hard work, education will take you far beyond what any government program can ever promise.
The biggest determinant in our lives is culture, where we are born, what the environment looks like. But the second biggest determinant is probably governance, good governance or a certain kind of governance makes a huge difference in our lives.
If you want government to take everything, if you want government to take more and more over with the banks, more of the industries, all of a sudden you're going to have a government auto czar, right there, right down the line, that's socialism.
What you and I understand as a government doesn't exist in many African countries. In fact, what we call our governments are vampire states. Vampires because they suck the economic vitality out of their people. Government is the problem in Africa.
Essentially we need a new social consensus for economic reform as New Labour has achieved in Britain.
What I've said in the past is that I want the Labour Party to approach this matter on the basis of unity.
If the Labour party goes back to reasserting its socialist and democratic beliefs, that's where I belong.
Ni dieu ni maître! (Neither God nor master) [Feminist and labour slogan translated to 'No gods, no masters']
Our recent 5-year labour agreements, in Canada as well as the United States, are based upon experience, logic and principle rather than on pressure, propaganda and force.
And it seems to me in that experience may lie at least some of the clues for policy development perhaps constitutional changes as well that Labour will need to make at the national level too.
For six and a half years, I had responsibility for leading the Labour party policy on education and delivering on our promise of improved opportunities for all our children.
I love being in my garden. I don't plant a lot of exotic flora, but I do spend a lot of time outside doing manual labour.
But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.
But a rise in the wages of labour would not equally affect commodities produced with machinery quickly consumed, and commodities produced with machinery slowly consumed.
