If you tell Canadians that you want to interview them for a critical piece on the Canadian healthcare system, they'll put on their best trophy-wife smile for the camera and list its many accolades. Catch them on a day with their guard down in need of actual care, however, and the truth comes out.

I'm a pansy when compared to the men and women of the United States military.

To all you men out there who want to use turning the other cheek as an excuse for your weakness... man up! Develop yourself to the point that you are powerful enough to face any conflict in your life head on and without trouble. Then, use your newfound confidence to avoid the conflict.

Call me old-fashioned, but it's always been my firm belief that a teacher's job should be for each of his or her students to finish the year with a grade of 100%.

The problem is that the American public is suspicious of executive power shrouded in secrecy. In the absence of an official picture of what our government is doing, and by what authority, many in the public fill the void by envisioning the worst.

Politics changes lives. You would expect me, as a politician, to say that. But I don't say it as a politician: I say it as someone whose own life was changed.

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Every time a government minister or spokesman lauds Magna Carta, let us boo or hiss. Shame them. And let us celebrate what it really means to our history: the ability of an emerging class to make demands against the state for new liberties and rights.