The fact is Canadians understand that immigration, that people fleeing for their lives, that people wanting to build a better life for themselves and their kids is what created Canada, it's what created North America.
For generations, Canada has been built by hard-working people who want to make sure their kids have a better life than they did.
We have created a society where individual rights and freedoms, compassion and diversity are core to our citizenship. But underlying that idea of Canada is the promise that we all have a chance to build a better life for ourselves and our children.
We're investing billions of dollars in housing, in home care on the medical side. We're investing billions of dollars in public transit that is not just creating good jobs now but is going to help people get to and from their good jobs in more reliable ways.
CBC has a very important mandate to bind Canada together in both official languages, tell local stories, and make sure we have a sense of our strength, our culture, our stories.
We know that trade, NAFTA, the free and open trade between Canada and the U.S. creates millions of good jobs on both sides of the border.
As soon as you're locking doors, you're narrowing your circle. And your circle gets smaller and smaller until it's finally just yourself and your buddy and you've got no one to party with.
Throughout our history, Canada's immigration policy has brought people here who had a pathway to citizenship. They were - and are - nation builders. It has been supported by political parties of all stripes and promoted by successive governments over generations.
Open nominations means it is local Liberals who choose who gets to be their representative. But what that doesn't mean is that somebody can behave any which way and bully other people out of the nomination and then be the last person standing.
A Canadian on the ground in different parts of the world, whether they're a diplomat, an aid worker, or a soldier, has an extraordinary, powerful impact.
A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. And you devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone.
Since taking office, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have transformed the Temporary Foreign Worker Program - which was originally designed to bring in temporary workers on a limited basis when no Canadian could be found - into one that has brought in a large pool of vulnerable workers.
One of the fundamental responsibilities of any Canadian prime minister is to get our resources to market.
The Northwest Passage is Canadian. People can't just abuse it.
The federal government's role is to establish a process whereby industry can pitch a project, and Canadians can be reassured that this project is worth the risk. That's at the heart of governments granting permits and communities granting permission. People understand we do need economic growth. We do need natural resource projects.
The Liberal party has always worked with multiple parties in the House to make sure we're being governed in the best interest of Canadians.
Connecting with Canadians isn't about what you say, it's about what you're listening to. It's about what you understand.
I've made the commitment to Canadians that I'm going to stay myself, and I'm going stay open about it, and I'm going to make sure that the thoughtfulness with which I approach issues continues to shine through.
Canadians want to elect good people to be their voice in Ottawa.
I think I'd work on making sure that Canadians have opportunities to find good jobs, to grow, to gain stability in terms of pensions. The reality is that Canadians don't feel that our economy is working for us.
