Top 90 Stephen Harper Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Our relationship with nature is more one of being than having. We are nature: we do not have nature.”

— Stephen Harper

2. “There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept.”

— Stephen Harper

3. “Evil comes in many forms and seems to reinvent itself time and again. But whatever it calls itself – Nazism, Marxist-Leninism, today, terrorism – they all have one thing in common: the destruction, the end of human liberty.”

— Stephen Harper

4. “I think people should elect a cat person. If you elect a dog person, you elect someone who wants to be loved. If you elect a cat person, you elect someone who wants to serve.”

— Stephen Harper

5. “Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it.”

— Stephen Harper

6. “As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.”

— Stephen Harper

7. “Having hit a wall, the next logical step is not to bang our heads against it.”

— Stephen Harper

8. “If we are willing to be still and open enough to listen, wilderness itself will teach us.”

— Stephen Harper

9. “I believe very strongly that in this world you have to have values and you have to stand up for your interests and if you don’t do those things you’re not going to get anywhere.”

— Stephen Harper

10. “I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it’s legendary that if you’re like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.”

— Stephen Harper

11. “Faith teaches that there is a right and wrong beyond mere opinion or desire. Most importantly, it teaches us that freedom is not an end in itself, that how freedom is exercised matters as much as freedom itself.”

— Stephen Harper

12. “Canada is big enough to make a difference but not big enough to threaten anybody. And that is a huge asset if it’s properly used.”

— Stephen Harper

13. “We have in this country a federal government that increasingly is engaged in trying to determine which business, which regions, which industries will succeed, which will not through a whole range of economic development, regional development corporate subsidization programs.”

— Stephen Harper

14. “Paul Martin talks eloquently about defending national sovereignty but the reality hasn’t matched the rhetoric. When it comes to the United States, Mr. Martin says he calls them as he sees them, but when it comes to American passage through Canada, he doesn’t actually see anything.”

— Stephen Harper

15. “After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn’t mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It’s a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question.”

— Stephen Harper

16. “I think in Atlantic Canada, because of what happened in the decades following Confederation, there is a culture of defeat that we have to overcome.”

— Stephen Harper

17. “Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been.”

— Stephen Harper

18. “We have to remember we’re in a global economy. The purpose of fiscal stimulus is not simply to sustain activity in our national economies, but to help the global economy as well, and that’s why it’s so critical that measures in those packages avoid anything that smacks of protectionism.”

— Stephen Harper

19. “If Ottawa giveth, then Ottawa can taketh away.”

— Stephen Harper

20. “There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don’t think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders.”

— Stephen Harper

21. “Carbon dioxide does not cause or contribute to smog, and the Kyoto treaty would do nothing to reduce or prevent smog.”

— Stephen Harper

22. “It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.”

— Stephen Harper

23. “Look, I think the worst case scenario is obvious. I think first of all it doesn’t work for very long. It’s an unstable government that raises taxes and destroys the image we’re building for Canada as a strong place to invest.”

— Stephen Harper

Featured in: Strong Quotes

24. “I think because we’re such a trading nation, I think Canadians understand that first and foremost we’re part of the global economy.”

— Stephen Harper

25. “We want to see oil and gas regulations on a continental basis given the integrated nature of this industry, with the current conditions in the oil and gas sector, this government will not consider unilateral regulation.”

— Stephen Harper

26. “Canada is a vast and empty country.”

— Stephen Harper

27. “The continued increase in many crime indicators and the fact that the overall crime rate has not seen a marked decrease while the Liberals have been in power is a clear indication that the Liberal approach to combating crime, as on so many other issues, has failed.”

— Stephen Harper

28. “The single most important duty of the federal government is to protect and defend our national sovereignty. There are new and disturbing reports of American nuclear submarines passing though Canadian waters without obtaining the permission of, or even notifying, the Canadian government.”

— Stephen Harper

29. “It’s the idea that we just have to go along, we can’t change it, things won’t change. I think that’s the sad part, the sad reality traditional parties have bred in parts of Atlantic Canada.”

— Stephen Harper

30. “You have to remember that west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from eastern Canada; people who live in ghettos and are not integrated into Western Canadian society.”

— Stephen Harper

31. “Don’t indulge your theories, think of your children and listen to the experts.”

— Stephen Harper

32. “You don’t defend national sovereignty with flags, cheap election rhetoric, and advertising campaigns.”

— Stephen Harper

33. “As I constantly remind Canadians, there isnt really a Canadian economy anymore. It is a global economy.”

— Stephen Harper

34. “I think we’re vastly over-invested in universities. Universities should be relatively small and provide excellent education and research in a number of specialized areas. I think the vast majority of young people should be going through non-university, post-secondary training.”

— Stephen Harper

35. “In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don’t feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don’t feel bad about it themselves, as long as they’re receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.”

— Stephen Harper

36. “The jackasses at Elections Canada are out of control.”

— Stephen Harper

37. “If you want to diminish the number of abortions, you’ve got to change hearts and not laws.”

— Stephen Harper

38. “Corruption is not a Canadian value!”

— Stephen Harper

39. “The world is now unipolar and contains o-nly o-ne superpower. Canada shares a continent with that superpower.”

— Stephen Harper

40. “Now ‘pay equity’ has everything to do with pay and nothing to do with equity. It’s based on the vague notion of ‘equal pay for work of equal value,’ which is not the same as equal pay for the same job.”

— Stephen Harper

41. “It’s all part of the pattern. This is a story of scandal and corruption, investigations, refusals to take responsibility. If this government continues in office, this will continue.”

— Stephen Harper

42. “It’s past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act.”

— Stephen Harper

43. “Buying pollution credits is folly; it doesn’t help the environment. Instead of using tax dollars to buy credits overseas, we’ll use them at home.”

— Stephen Harper

44. “I’ve always been clear, I support the traditional definition of marriage.”

— Stephen Harper

45. “This party will not take its position based on public opinion polls. We will not take a stand based on focus groups. We will not take a stand based on phone-in shows or householder surveys or any other vagaries of pubic opinion.”

— Stephen Harper

46. “But the Progressive Conservative is very definitely liberal Republican. These are people who are moderately conservative on economic matters, and in the past have been moderately liberal, even sometimes quite liberal on social policy matters.”

— Stephen Harper

47. “I believe that all taxes are bad.”

— Stephen Harper

48. “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.”

— Stephen Harper

49. “If you want to be a government in a minority Parliament, you have to work with other people.”

— Stephen Harper

50. “Everybody makes money when times are good. It’s when times are not so good that the groundwork is laid for the next generation.”

— Stephen Harper