I stand for Canada and upon that issue of, Canadians before any other people in the world, I'm prepared to seek suffrage of my fellow men. - Richard Bedford Bennett

The time has come when I must speak to you with the utmost frankness about our national affairs, for your understanding of them is essential to your welfare. This is a critical hour in the history of our country. Momentous questions await your decision. Our future course must now be charted. There is one course, I believe with all my heart, which will lead us to security. It is for you to decide whether we will take it. I am confident that your decision will be the right one, when, with care and diligence, you have studied the facts. Then you will support the action which your judgment decrees to be imperative; you will strive for its success, for its success will determine the future of Canada.

If there ever was an election conducted by a political party on the basis of wholesale and most unqualified promises and pledges to all classes and description, it was the Election through which we have just passed, and it is as a result of these promises and pledges that the Honourable gentlemen opposite are in office.

A sound partnership is founded on mutuality of interest. Good business is predicted upon reciprocal benefits. This is neither.... There is no true Canadian who would not gladly surrender some personal advantage to help the people of the parent state; Britain however neither needs nor asks for help like that. What she wants is what we want -- broader areas of trade developed through an alliance to which we each bring the powers which have made us what we are. She wants with us a greater empire of the future and for that we Canadians must build a greater Canada. I say now what I have said from youth, that the future of the Empire depends upon the upbuilding of Canada; it depends upon the development of the great resources of Canada. Any sacrifice that we may make of our position whereby we cease to be autonomous in the development of this great state is fraught with the gravest disaster not to us alone but to the Empire of which we form a part. What is good for one is good for both, and what is bad for one cannot avail the other.