Top 121 Justin Trudeau Quotes

My whole life has been about figuring out the balance between knowing who I am and being who I am and accepting that people will come to me with all sorts of preconceptions.

I don’t feel that I or Canada has to prove anything through big, loud, overt acts.

We’re actually able to approve pipelines at a time when everyone wants protection of the environment. We’re being able to show that we get people’s fears, and there are constructive ways of allaying them – and not just ways to lash out and give a big kick to the system.

Politicians are constantly stuck between what is politically expedient and politically beneficial and what is the responsible or right thing to do. It’s a tension we all go through.

Canada’s extraordinary success is that we have bound together a vast country with a set of shared ideas and beliefs.

My father’s values and vision of this country obviously form everything I have as values and ideals. But this is not the ghost of my father running for the leadership of the Liberal party. This is me.

If we wander around as politicians jumping at every shadow and desperately afraid of having our words taken out of context or attacks layered on in an unfair way, I think we’re actually doing a disrespect to Canadians, to people’s intelligence.

If you’re a progressive, you really should be a feminist because it’s about equality, it’s about respect, it’s about making the best of the world that we have.

Canadians need a plan for jobs and growth.

We were able to sign free trade agreement with Europe at a time when people tend to be closing off.

We provide our citizens upward mobility through economic opportunity.

I think people are looking at Canada and realizing we’re a place that is building for the long term and where the world’s going to be.

There was a perception that I’d grown up with a silver spoon in my mouth.

My father found cocktail parties challenging.

Richard Nixon made a toast to me as a future Prime Minister of Canada when I was 4 months old, sitting as a centerpiece in the middle of a table as my father had plonked me down there. It was more about politeness than any great vision.

I think people are understanding that I’m immensely proud of my father. If people talk to me about him, I’ll certainly respond. And there’s a certain generation that still talks about him right off. And I take that with gratefulness and with gratitude.

I know and I’ve always felt for Canada that we recognize that diversity is a great source of strength.

One of the reasons why Canadians are generally positively inclined towards immigration is we’ve seen over decades, over generations, that it works.

People don’t believe that any politician is any different from any other one.

I’ve made the commitment to Canadians that I’m going to stay myself, and I’m going stay open about it, and I’m going to make sure that the thoughtfulness with which I approach issues continues to shine through.

Open nominations means it is local Liberals who choose who gets to be their representative. But what that doesn’t mean is that somebody can behave any which way and bully other people out of the nomination and then be the last person standing.

Canada was built around a very simple premise. A promise that you can work hard and succeed and build a future for yourselves and your kids, and that future for your kids would be better than the one you had.

This is the kind of balance people expect: both environment and the economy – not one or the other.

The Liberal Party will not vote – no Liberal member of Parliament will vote – to take away a woman’s right to choose.

Since I became Liberal leader, I’ve focused on building a better Canada for the middle class.

A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. And you devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone.

We’re committed to making sure parents have affordable, quality early learning for their kids – there’s no question about it.

My mother is brilliant but emotional and very much gregarious and connected to people. My father was brilliant but focused and driven and very narrow-casted.

People in the street will either call me ‘Prime Minister’ or ‘Justin.’ We’ll see how that goes. But when I’m working, when I’m with my staff in public, I’m ‘Prime Minister.’ I say that if we’re drinking beer out of a bottle, and you can see my tattoos, you should be comfortable calling me ‘Justin.’

If Rob Ford decided he wanted to run for the Liberal Party in 2015, we’d say, ‘No, sorry, the way you approach things, the way you govern, the way you behave is not suitable to the kind of Liberal team we want to build.’

People have to know that when you sign a deal with Canada, a change in governments won’t immediately scrap the jobs and benefits coming from it.

What I was raised with in terms of a call to service was just a sense that I was lucky.

Can I actually make a difference? Can I get people to believe in politics once again? Can I get people to accept more complex answers to complex questions? I know I can. I know that’s what I do very well.

I was a high-school teacher. I am a strong advocate for women’s rights, and I’m not a woman.

The Liberal party has always worked with multiple parties in the House to make sure we’re being governed in the best interest of Canadians.

The Northwest Passage is Canadian. People can’t just abuse it.

Parents are the centre of a person’s solar system, even as an adult. My dad had a stronger gravitational pull than most, so his absence was bound to leave a deep and lasting void.

Every day, at home, I have the astonishing and humbling opportunity – together with my wife Sophie – to nurture empathy, compassion, self-love, and a keen sense of justice in our three kids.

We should have a good working friendship with the United States.

We know that trade, NAFTA, the free and open trade between Canada and the U.S. creates millions of good jobs on both sides of the border.

One of the fundamental responsibilities of any Canadian prime minister is to get our resources to market.

I’m not worried too much about left, right spectrum; I’m worried about what’s actually going to work to help Canadians who are worried about their own jobs, about their kids’ jobs.

I have no regrets.

Living your life in the public eye is a greater burden than most people can imagine.

People are very much worried that our kids are not going to inherit the same opportunities that we inherited from our parents.

For me, I’ve always been Justin Trudeau, son of. All my life I’ve had to know I was carrying a name, and people were paying more attention to what I had to say, and I had to make a choice early on.

CBC has a very important mandate to bind Canada together in both official languages, tell local stories, and make sure we have a sense of our strength, our culture, our stories.

Openness, respect, integrity – these are principles that need to underpin pretty much every other decision that you make.

Nobody knows better than I do what the pressures of party leadership can do to a young family. It tore mine apart.

My job is to do the best possible job for my country, and I wouldn’t want someone else telling me what I should be doing in Canada.

Liberals will continue to put forward positive solutions that will help our economy grow and give all Canadians a real and fair chance at success.

We’re looking to make sure things are fair, and we’re always looking at ways to lower taxes for the middle class and raise them on the wealthiest one per cent.

One of the jokes among our family was that whenever Dad went to the movies, he insisted on getting his senior citizen’s discount. It was laughable to view him as a traditional senior citizen; he was one of the most robust people I ever knew. Until, very suddenly, he wasn’t.

I think Canadians have always been interested in the choices Americans make because the choices you make inevitably impact upon us… and how we make sure that we get that balance right between continuing to have a good relationship and standing for the things we believe in is what we expect of ourselves.

Income splitting benefits only fifteen per cent, mostly the wealthiest Canadians, but it’s paid for by everyone.

Withdrawing support from globalization is taking us in the wrong direction.

I trust Canadians’ capacity to determine who will sit in their Parliament.

Income splitting is not a wise investment for Canadians.

I think it’s always been understood that Canada is not a country that’s going to stand up and beat its chest on the world stage, but we can be very helpful in modelling solutions that work.

I think it’s hard to know how one deals in situations of confrontation until you’re actually in there, so I’m not going to speculate on what I would do.

Who cares about winning? We should focus on serving.

I think Canada has a great story, and I’m glad to tell it. And if there’s a moment where the world is paying a little more attention to Canada, well, I think it’s important to try and capitalize on that.