Growing up, mostly in Montreal, I was an only child of loving parents.

My interest in the sciences started with mathematics in the very beginning, and later with chemistry in early high school and the proverbial home chemistry set.

Being exposed to theory, stimulated by a basic love of concepts and mathematics, was a marvelous experience.

Life would be indeed easier if the experimentalists would only pause for a little while!

Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.

I do think that a school day that matches the work day makes a lot of difference for working families, but the big driver of this effort is education. Period. We have a lot of students not gaining the skills they need, and it is pretty clear that school does not offer enough time to get that job done.

My life was transformed by the Labour government of 1945. It was transformative for millions of people like me, you know - education, the health service. It was proof that politics can make life better for people; that a social dream can become a social reality by the power of government.

High-quality public education - combined with other appropriate support, as needed - is the best way to achieve the Oregon Business Plan's goal of reducing the number of people living in poverty.