Canada
I know and I've always felt for Canada that we recognize that diversity is a great source of strength.
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.
The communities and countries best at using energy to optimize a microclimate for human life are also the ones whose people have the longest average lifespans. Canada, Sweden, and Iceland — places with inhospitable winter weather — are frontrunners in sustaining human health and life.
My upbringing in Canada made me the person I am. I will always be proud to be a Canadian.
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.
Canada's extraordinary success is that we have bound together a vast country with a set of shared ideas and beliefs.
I started life washing cars in Canada before moving on to selling life insurance and vacuum cleaners. Later, I went through a programme by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, which literally changed my life. It was the turning point.
I know that a prime minister of Canada needs to be deeply respectful of the other levels of government — whether it be municipal, provincial, or even nation-to-nation relationships with aboriginal governments.
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.
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.
Anytime I meet people who got to make the deliberate choice, whose parents chose Canada, I'm jealous. Because I think being able to choose it, rather than being Canadian by default, is an amazing statement of attachment to Canada.
For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for.
We don't come to Canada for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves.
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