Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper
Stephen Joseph Harper PC MPis a Canadian politician and member of Parliament who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada, from February 6, 2006 to November 4, 2015. He was the first prime minister to come from the modern Conservative Party of Canada, which was formed by a merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionWorld Leader
Date of Birth30 April 1959
CityLeaside, Canada
CountryCanada
There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don't think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders.
Canadians know that the promise of a recession didn't happen because of anything we did here. If you look at all the causes of the recession, problems in mortgage markets, the problems in the banking sector, the problems in government finance in countries like Greece, none of those problems were in present Canada.
The job numbers are positive. We've had more jobs created now than were lost during the recession. We're seeing that the creation, we're seeing those numbers not only grow but shift toward the private sector and shift toward full-time employment and these are all signs that the recovery is taking some hold but we're not out of woods.
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.
I think the way to change it is to handle issues individually when it's essential to do so.
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.
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.
It [the Iraq invasion] was absolutely an error. It's obviously clear the evaluation of weapons of mass destruction proved not to be correct. That's absolutely true and that's why we're not sending anybody to Iraq.
It was the removing of a regime that was hostile, that clearly had the intention of constructing weapons systems.
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.
I don't get into that second guessing of myself publicly.
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...
I know economists will say well, we could run a small deficit but the problem is that once you cross that line as we see in the United States, nothing stops deficits from getting larger and larger and spiralling out of control.
It's the government's obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to govern.