Stephen Harper

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.

What the government has to do, if it wants to govern for any length of time, is it must appeal primarily to the third parties in the House of Commons to get them to support it.

We’ve got to see a state where the Afghan government can handle its own day-to-day security.

We’ll support the government on issues if it’s essential to the country but our primary responsibility is not to prop up the government, our responsibility is to provide an opposition and an alternative government for Parliament and for Canadians.

I forget what the relevant American rate is, but I can tell you that our goal is to have a combined federal-provincial corporate tax rate of no more than 25 percent. We’re on target to do that by 2012. We will have significantly – by a significant margin the lowest corporate tax rates in the G-7, and that’s our – our government’s objective.

It’s the government’s obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to govern.

The Leader of the Opposition’s constitutional obligation – the obligation to Parliament – it’s the reason we did the merger! – is to make sure Canadians have an alternative for government.

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.

We should have been there shoulder to shoulder with our allies. Our concern is the instability of our government as an ally. We are playing again with national and global security matters.

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