I lost my daughter at 21. I had to give her up because I was broke, no place to take her, no money to take her. That was very traumatic.

My childhood was very difficult. I had every childhood disease and then some, but my parents didn't mollycoddle me. They left me to fight those battles on my own. I guess that was very Canadian, very stoic. But it's good. I had to become a warrior. I had to give up hope and find a substitute for hope that would be far more stable.

My name had gone stale, and no matter how progressive I got, it was my time to die.

Edith Piaf knocked my socks off when I was 8, but I didn't know what she was singing about.

This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.