The kind of politics that creates enemies is destructive for the community.
—MICHAEL IGNATIEFF
You know, we have main English language parties, federalist parties, and traditionally the ones to watch would be the Conservatives, who form the government, and then the Liberals.
—RICK MERCER
We like to look at other countries’ problems, in order to forget our own.
—HAROLD INNIS
In politics, an alliance is a dalliance.
—JOHN ROBERT COLOMBO
The politician’s promises of yesterday are the taxes of today.
—W.L. MACKENZIE KING
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Ronald Reagan: proof that there is life after death.
—MORT SAHL
Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he had run unopposed, he would have lost.
—MORT SAHL
Washington couldn’t tell a lie, Nixon couldn’t tell the truth and Reagan couldn’t tell the difference.
—MORT SAHL
People want politicians to be honest until they need something from them.
—ROBERT N. HALL
The essential ingredient of politics is timing.
—PIERRE TRUDEAU
The state has no place in the nation’s bedrooms.
—PIERRE TRUDEAU
Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.
—MORT SAHL
During a campaign the air is full of speeches— and vice versa.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
The chief distinction of a diplomat is that he can easily say no in such a way that it sounds like yes.
—LESTER PEARSON
The Law Society prohibits sex between lawyers and their clients to prevent clients for being billed twice for essentially the same service.
—ALAN DAVIES
Lawyers are clever enough to convince you that the Constitution is unconstitutional.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Law school taught me one thing: how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different.
—HART POMERANTZ
The conservatives want to lay off civil servants when it’s the uncivil servants we should get rid of.
—IRENE PETER
A conservative could be a Liberal who went into a holding pattern.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
The President of today is the postage stamp of tomorrow.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
If the government truly cared about the environment, there would be a “cow flatulence” tax on meat.
—FLOYD MAXWELL
Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s problems.
—MARSHALL MCLUHAN
We hate our politicians so much that even if they tell us they lied, we don’t believe them.
—PETER C. NEWMAN
A bureaucrat’s idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of every paper before he destroys it.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Civil liberties are always safe as long as their exercise doesn’t bother anyone.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Give me liberty or a bran muffin!
—COLIN MOCHRIE
There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from.
—MARGARET ATWOOD
Hitler said that he always knew you could buy the press. What he didn’t know was you could get them cheap.
—MORT SAHL
The rulers of the country generally believed that betting eliminates strikes. Men had to work in order to gamble.
—MICHAEL ONDAATJE
Political commercials encourage the deceptive, the destructive and the degrading.
—JOHN O’TOOLE
If you give the media the opportunity to get the facts wrong, they probably will.
—CLIVE COURT
In ancient times they had no statistics so they had to fall back on lies.
—STEPHEN LEACOCK
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
—JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
Under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it’s just the opposite.
—J.K. GALBRAITH
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
—J.K. GALBRAITH
There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.
—JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.
—DALTON CAMP
The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Man cannot live by incompetence alone.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
The election is not a time to discuss serious issues.
—KIM CAMPBELL
Parliamentary Reporter, job description: To stand in marbled hallways outside paneled committee rooms, waiting for important people to come through the door and tell you lies.
—MICHAEL COOKE
Take our politicians: they’re a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of clichés the first prize.
—SAUL BELLOW
Only in politics do resurrections occur.
—ROBERT BOURASSA
The federal government is like a handicapped turtle trying to crawl around and keep up with the rabbit, which is technology.
—JAMES BREITHAUPT
Politicians dream of a statue.
So do pigeons.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight.
—LEONARD COHEN
The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.
—THOMAS C. HALIBURTON
No man should enter politics unless he is either independently rich or independently poor.
—ROBERT JAMES MANION
We uphold our principles but we find a way around them.
—JOHN HUGHES, FOOTBALLER, SPEAKING ON CANADIAN POLITICS