Maxime Bernier

The Conservative Party tries to avoid important but controversial issues of concern to Conservatives and Canadians in general. It is afraid to articulate any coherent philosophy to support its positions.

Canadians are a compassionate people and we should be. But at what cost?

Actually, I'm the only politician in Ottawa who is against the Paris Accord.

Integrating is easier when you have a job in Canada.

Policy should not aim to change the cultural character and social fabric of Canada.

Brian Mulroney came to power in 1984 and privatized Petro-Canada, brought in the GST and signed the free trade agreement with the U.S. He was a great prime minister and made bold conservative changes. That's all I want to do.

You have to stick to your principles and when you believe in something, to fight for it.

If you believe in free markets, I don't want to make any compromise with my principles and I think that's the right policy for Canadians and for Canadian consumers.

The politicians, they try to please everybody and when you want to please everybody, you won't please everybody. That's not my way of doing politics.

People who refuse to integrate into our society and want to live apart in their ghetto don't make our society strong.

Do we want to emphasize our ethnic and religious differences, and exploit them to buy votes, as the Liberals are doing? Or emphasize what unites us and the values that can guarantee social cohesion?

The Conservative Party has abandoned conservatives.

If we want conservative principles to win the battle of ideas, we have to defend them openly, with passion and conviction.

I believe in people, and you don't need to be a feminist for that.

A Conservative party that supports free markets should also advocate the end of corporate welfare.

I am in politics to defend ideas, real conservative ideas. Because I passionately care about Canada's future. Because I know that the free-market conservative philosophy has the best solutions to ensure our society is more prosperous, secure, and peaceful.

Some may remember that, in 2010, I publicly broke ranks with my colleagues from the Quebec City area who were pushing our government to subsidize a new sports amphitheater in the city. They had seized on this popular project to... What else? Buy votes.

I know many Canadians are fed up with the traditional way of doing politics.

A small group of motivated citizens can potentially have as much influence as a lobby group spending millions of dollars.

The free market, the people, will find solutions and they always did in the past.

The electric car, it's not the government saying, 'Oh, we must have electric cars.' The market was ready for that. People were ready for that, so, we have electric cars.

You can shut down our economy and the effect on climate change, it will be nothing.

I believe in climate change.

We must start pushing back against this politically correct nonsense that's destroying our society and culture.

I have people on Twitter that they know better my own platform than myself.

While the other parties look at polls and focus groups to decide what they stand for, and pander to every special interest group, we follow our principles.

Yes, I worked in Montreal. I worked there for 20 years... I came back to Beauce in 2006 to represent the Beaucerons.

I like free markets, I like competition.

The People's Party, I am working for the people and we want to put the power back in people.

I am not a communist.

Everyone who knows me, they know that I am not a socialist.

We care about shared values, culture and identity.

You can be of any ethnic background or faith and be a Canadian if you share fundamental Canadian values, learn about our history and culture, and integrate in our society.

I don't care one bit about people's race or skin colour.

I can understand why immigrants would want to bring the rest of their extended family here, including older ones who will benefit from our health-care system.

We must go back and we must be sure that our immigrants will be well-integrated into our society, and the best way to do that is to have more economic immigrants, less refugees a little bit and less reunufication of families.

It's federal jurisdiction, so the federal government can approve pipelines.

We must give less money to these provinces, like my own province of Quebec, and give them the right incentive to develop their own natural resources and their economy.

I'm a kind of an entrepreneur.

I think it is not important to have the free trade agreement with China.

My party will do nothing on climate change because environment, it's a shared jurisdiction, and provinces, they have programs for that, and so I'll let provinces decide what they're going to do to fight climate change.

What is best for the Beauce is what is best for Canada.

I want a smaller government, yes, but I want a government that will be fair.

I want to get rid of corporate welfare.

When you have more competition, you have better products and lower prices.

You know, I'm a free market politician and I think I'm the only one who worked for think-tanks like the Montreal Economic Institute.

I am saying to Canadians, there is no climate emergency in this country.

We believe in immigration, but we don't believe in mass immigration.

We need new technology to fight climate change and that will come from the private sector.

If you're choosing somebody that doesn't have the competence, but because it's a young guy, or it's a lady or if it's a man, it's a positive discrimination and I won't push that.