Stephen Harper Quotes

How much reform do you think this institution [Congress] can take?

We must restore faith in politics. Reform of the House of Lords is only one part of the answer, but it is a vital one.

Constitutional reform is exasperatingly slow.

When we have a majority we will do it. I think the days of the Lords are quite genuinely numbered.

It is given to Bristol in this election to wrench the parliamentary system away from its feudal origins, and pitchfork it kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.

The House of Lords must go - not be reformed, not be replaced, not be reborn in some nominated life-after-death patronage paradise, just closed down, abolished, finished.

When it comes to Senate reform, in general, I've always been a believer in an elected Senate and would hope to achieve aspects of Senate reform.

I cannot... perceive any ground for hoping that any practical good would, while the funding system exists in its present extent, result from the adoption of any of those projects, which have professed to have in view what is called Parliamentary Reform... when the funding system, from whatever cause, shall cease to operate upon civil and political liberty, there will be no need of projects for parliamentary reform. The parliament will, as far as shall be necessary, then reform itself.

I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government

All free governments must consist of two councils, a lesser and a greater.

We must not just change presidents. We must change direction.

The voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve.

He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted ... must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones.

The very existence of a bicameral legislature is itself another defense of the status quo.

Let the filibuster be no more. Let the people decide.

'Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why the word had to be erased from our political lexicon.

I continue faithful to the measure of Parliamentary reform brought forward by Mr. Pitt. I am firmly persuaded that at present a prodigious majority of the people of this country are adverse to the measure. In my view, so far from being an objection to the discussion, this is rather a recommendation.

You get few chances to make really transformational institutional change.

The Constitution will be reformed in accordance with our revolution.

Most governments and people want reform. It’s the prospect of change that makes reform rare.

Real freedom will require many changes in the nation’s political and social philosophies and institutions.

The period of radical reform is finished.

All politicians will have to change to be worthy of our people.

Is there a man who will say that the Constitution wants no reform? Will any man be found to say that the Constitution is perfect?

The duty of an American churchman in China is not simply introducing new ideas into the country, but modifying its industrial, social, and political life and institutions. Missionaries are the pioneers of trade and commerce. Civilization, learning, instruction breed new wants which commerce supplies.