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Bob Rae Quotes

Robert Keith Rae is a Canadian lawyer, negotiator, public speaker, and former politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and was the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2011 to 2013. He was previously leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party and the 21st Premier of Ontario, from 1990 until 1995. Between 1978 and 2013, he was elected 11 times to federal and provincial parliaments.Rae was a New Democratic Party member of Parliament from 1978 to 1982. Then he moved to provincial politics, serving as leader of the Ontario NDP from February 7, 1982, to June 22, 1996. After leading his party to victory in the 1990 provincial election he served as the 21st Premier of Ontario from October 1, 1990, to June 26, 1995, and was the first person to have led a provincial NDP government in the province of Ontario. While in office, he brought forward a number of initiatives that were unpopular with many traditional NDP supporters, such as the Social Contract. Rae's subsequent disagreement with the leftward direction of the NDP led him to resign his membership. In 2006, he joined the Liberals; he had previously been a Liberal in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 2006, he was a candidate for the leadership of the Liberals, finishing in third place on the third ballot. Rae returned to the House of Commons of Canada on March 31, 2008, as a Liberal MP after winning a March 17, 2008 by-election, holding the riding that had previously been held by Liberal Bill Graham. He was re-elected in the 2008 general election. Rae ran again as a candidate for the party leadership but withdrew on December 12, 2008. He was re-elected in the Toronto Centre riding in the 2011 general election and was named interim leader of the Liberal Party weeks later, replacing Michael Ignatieff; he served in that position until Justin Trudeau's election as party leader in early 2013. On June 19, 2013, Rae announced that he would resign from parliament in order to become chief negotiator for James Bay area First Nations in their negotiations with the provincial government. His resignation from parliament became effective July 31, 2013. Rae joined Olthuis Kleer Townshend LLP as a partner in February 2014. Rae sits as an advisor to Canada's Ecofiscal Commission.

He was appointed Canada's special envoy to Myanmar in October 2017 and advised Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the Rohingya crisis. He is also a Senior Fellow to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. Wikipedia  

✵ 2. August 1948
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Bob Rae: 18 quotes0 likes

Famous Bob Rae Quotes

“The major cuts in federal and provincial transfers to social service agencies, health care, education, and social housing over the past several years have not bee matched by an explosion in private giving. Nor will they ever be.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Five, The Second Question: Charity and Welfare-The Old Debate Is New Again,, p. 91

“Governments steer better than they row.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Five, The Second Question: Charity and Welfare-The Old Debate Is New Again, p. 98

“Like sailors, we cannot change the weather or the direction of the wind. But we change the direction of our sails.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Five, The Second Question: Charity and Welfare-The Old Debate Is New Again, p. 95

“The idea of politics is in need of defence.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Eight, The Need For Politics, p. 167

“To suggest that the global market-place of the twenty first century there will be no role for the state and the public sector is clearly nonsense.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Four, Self-Interest and the Public Interest: Taxes, Debts, and Deficits, p. 64

“Constitutions do not emerge perfectly formed from the brain of the philosopher king, as Mr. Trudeau himself discovered in 1980 and 1981. They are always messy processes that are easier to knock down or tear apart than they are to construct.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Seven, The Three Questions and the Question of Canada, p. 158

Bob Rae Quotes

“As I grow older, I have had to discard some ideas and policies because they no longer make sense. This strikes me as entirely healthy. I would invite others to do the same.”

Bob Rae

Preface, p. ix
The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998)

“Self-interest is a necessary but hardly a sufficient basis for a decent society.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Four, Self-Interest and the Public Interest: Taxes, Debts, and Deficits, p. 86

“The emergence of the market model in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia is no accident. It is not the product of a corporate conspiracy. It is the consequence of hard lessons learned from cold experience.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Two, The First Question: Self Interest and Prosperity, p. 21

“If the rising tide fails to lift all boats, resentments will increase.”

Bob Rae

Conclusion, If Not Now, When?, p. 202
The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998)

“Politics is about the persuasion required to move people to judgement.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Eight, The Need For Politics, p. 193

“History has only ended for those caught inside the Marxist hothouse. For the rest of us the argument is just getting interesting.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Three, The End of Government?, p. 54

“" many on the right confuse the "is" of globalization with the "ought" of simply accepting all its effects. They preach a political quietism that is really just a cloak for greed.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter One, The Rabbi's Three Questions, p. 7

“Change is the cliché of our time. It also happens to be the prevailing truth.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter One, The Rabbi's Three Questions, p. 3

“The premise of neo-conservatives is that markets left to their own devices will produce the best possible result, and that political interference is not required. This defies the human reality that people are not commodities, and simply refuse to behave as if they were.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Two, The First Question: Self Interest and Prosperity, p. 39-40

“We spend the vast bulk of money in the health, welfare, and education systems in the later years of life. Yet it is in the earliest years that life chances are moulded and set.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Six, The Second Question: Health, Education, and the Democratic Economy, p. 124

“Angry teachers can defeat governments”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Six, The Second Question: Health, Education, and the Democratic Economy, p. 121

“We do not yet have a politics that is equal to the economics around us.”

Bob Rae

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Two, The First Question: Self Interest and Prosperity, p. 40

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