Tony Valeri Quotations

We're focused on keeping the House open, not shutting it down, ... It's the opposition that seems to be focused on shutting it down and dragging Canadians back to the polls.

Mr. Hill characterizes 69 bills being introduced in the House from the period of Oct. 24, 2004 to June 20, 2005, which received Royal Assent as a skimpy agenda. We've sustained over 40 votes of confidence. We passed legislation to implement the fundamental forms of equalization. We passed legislation on civil marriage. We passed legislation and implemented a new deal for cities, the offshore accords--I mean, that was not a skimpy agenda that we've just gone through and presented to the House. Now, this fall we're going to build on that agenda,

Going into the session, our priorities will remain the same, ... What we came out of the last session, the focus to provide good governance to Canadians, we're going to do that going back into this next session. We're going to move forward on building a 21st century economy. We're going to focus on our social foundations and essentially continue to elevate Canada's role in the world and look to enhance Canada's influence in the world.

The Pacific Gateway initiative is very important for the country when we talk about the changing economic border where China and India are becoming much more dominant, ... Canada is very strategically positioned when we look at the west and the ability to move trade through our country. A Gateway strategy right across this country is going to be an important initiative.

I think Canadians deserve better, ... I think if we, collectively as Parliamentarians enter this session working on behalf of Canadians, and not engaging in the partisanship that was so predominant in the last session then I think it will be a better session.

We're not running scared at all. What you're going to see over the next days and weeks is an agenda that's in the House--opposition parties can decide whether they want to support the agenda or not. This government will be putting things into the House to demonstrate that we're governing and ultimately the opposition parties will, I hope, participate in that and look to deliver things on behalf of Canadians.

The government will not be out there declaring initiatives of confidence when they're not, ... We'll be very clear and very consistent in our approach. But our intention is to govern.