Quotes from Stephen Harper

The Leader of the Opposition's constitutional obligation - the obligation to Parliament - it's the reason we did the merger! - is to make sure Canadians have an alternative for government.

Having hit a wall, the next logical step is not to bang our heads against it.

The world is now unipolar and contains o-nly o-ne superpower. Canada shares a continent with that superpower.

Everybody makes money when times are good. It's when times are not so good that the groundwork is laid for the next generation.

If we are willing to be still and open enough to listen, wilderness itself will teach us.

As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.

But I'm very libertarian in the sense that I believe in small government and, as a general rule, I don't believe in imposing values upon people.

Whether Canada ends up as o­ne national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion...

It's all part of the pattern. This is a story of scandal and corruption, investigations, refusals to take responsibility. If this government continues in office, this will continue.

It's the government's obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to govern.

There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don't think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders.

We should have been there shoulder to shoulder with our allies. Our concern is the instability of our government as an ally. We are playing again with national and global security matters.

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.

We have to remember we're in a global economy. The purpose of fiscal stimulus is not simply to sustain activity in our national economies, but to help the global economy as well, and that's why it's so critical that measures in those packages avoid anything that smacks of protectionism.

On the justification for the war, it wasn't related to finding any particular weapon of mass destruction.

But I've been very clear in this campaign - I don't believe the party should have a position on abortion.

Our relationship with nature is more one of being than having. We are nature: we do not have nature.

After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question...

I forget what the relevant American rate is, but I can tell you that our goal is to have a combined federal-provincial corporate tax rate of no more than 25 percent. We're on target to do that by 2012. We will have significantly - by a significant margin the lowest corporate tax rates in the G-7, and that's our - our government's objective.

Canada is in budgetary deficit now only because of the recession, only because of stimulus measures, and we will come out of it. We will go back into surplus position when the economy recovers. So there is no need in Canada to raise taxes.

It's the idea that we just have to go along, we can't change it, things won't change. I think that's the sad part, the sad reality traditional parties have bred in parts of Atlantic Canada.

We'll support the government on issues if it's essential to the country but our primary responsibility is not to prop up the government, our responsibility is to provide an opposition and an alternative government for Parliament and for Canadians.

First of all, I can't forget my first responsibility - which is to be the Leader of the Opposition and that's to provide an alternative government.

We're not going to scrap the budget and make up some totally new platform the day after the election. So it's certainly willingness to compromise but we're not going back on the fundamental things we're running on in this campaign.