I thought I was a superstar at 12.

My existence is rock n' roll.

In every school, there's always the kid who gets it the worst, and I was, for sure, that kid. Every time you had to get in a line that was boys and girls, it was like my worst nightmare. A lot of kids I know got made fun of for being gay; that was not my issue: I was just called a girl endlessly.

I love to give the song away - it's so exciting - where, I think, a lot of younger songwriters, they struggle with that. And it's a big struggle, where they want the shine and they want people to know that it was their idea and it was their doing. But luckily, I've been through that, so I can just focus on helping other people do their thing.

My success happened pretty late in life. I can't even believe it happened.

The bullying was so bad that I got to go to the arts high school instead.

You can tell if something feels special. But there are so many moving parts involved in making the song a hit. The radio has to deliver, the management has to deliver in terms of booking the right promotions... just being a good song isn't enough.

For me, as a kid desperate to make music, I thought the only way I could do it was to try to be a superstar - which is a fun thing to be, but it can be exhausting and degrading.

I'm really proud of 'Kissing Strangers.'

We have created a society where individual rights and freedoms, compassion and diversity are core to our citizenship. But underlying that idea of Canada is the promise that we all have a chance to build a better life for ourselves and our children.

I am a teacher. It's how I define myself. A good teacher isn't someone who gives the answers out to their kids but is understanding of needs and challenges and gives tools to help other people succeed. That's the way I see myself, so whatever it is that I will do eventually after politics, it'll have to do a lot with teaching.

Canada has always been there to help people who need it.

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

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

The fact is Canadians understand that immigration, that people fleeing for their lives, that people wanting to build a better life for themselves and their kids is what created Canada, it's what created North America.

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.

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

We need to make sure we're all working together to change mindsets, to change attitudes, and to fight against the bad habits that we have as a society.

Leadership is inspiring extraordinary people to step up and serve their country.

Gender equality is not only an issue for women and girls.

You can't run a government from one single person. What instead matters is that leadership be about gathering around extraordinary individuals and getting the best out of them.

At one point, people are going to have to realize that maybe I know what I'm doing.

My idea of freedom is that we should protect the rights of people to believe what their conscience dictates, but fight equally hard to protect people from having the beliefs of others imposed upon them.

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

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.

You get more diversity and creativity in your problem solving, and you end up having a much better and more representative approach to solving the challenges faced by the population you serve.

Who cares about winning? We should focus on serving.

We provide our citizens upward mobility through economic opportunity.

We know that society is better - more prosperous, more stable, more peaceful, more cohesive - when women's rights are respected and when women are valued, empowered, and lead the way in our communities.

When I get out across the country and listen to people, the resentment that I see and the frustration that I see is that we have a generation of people who are fairly convinced that their kids are not going to have a better quality of life or a better future than they will.

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

Canadians are nice and polite. It's not just a stereotype.

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.

One of the things that we have to realize is we cannot get off gas, we cannot get off oil, fossil fuels tomorrow - it's going to take a few decades. Maybe we can shorten it, but there's going to have to be a transition time.

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.

My father raised us to step toward trouble rather than to step away from it.

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

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.

Any time you have a competitive situation like politics is, there are winners, and there are people who don't win, and their supporters can sometimes be very emotional.

In 2012, the Liberal Party affirmed overwhelmingly at the policy convention that we are a pro-choice party. It means that we are a party that defends women's rights, and therefore, it would be inconsistent for any Liberal MP to be able to vote to take away women's rights.

We're investing billions of dollars in housing, in home care on the medical side. We're investing billions of dollars in public transit that is not just creating good jobs now but is going to help people get to and from their good jobs in more reliable ways.

The federal government shouldn't be drawing lines on a map in terms of what transit infrastructure are needed; we should be there to be a partner with the cities, with the provinces, that need that.

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.

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.

People are very sophisticated in their concerns about various parties, in their hopes for what the next government could look like. And I'm not going to prejudge any possible outcomes.

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.

One of the challenges that Vancouver and cities across the country are facing is that we don't have a federal partner in terms of building for transit, not in the way we need.

When I get passionate or worked up about an issue, I say things that the Conservatives and opponents and critics like to pounce on.

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.