Apr 21 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — The best that can be said for the Conservatives’ new carbon pricing plan is that it will not be with us for long. I was going to say the best part is that it exists, Conservatives having spent the last dozen years or so savaging carbon pricing as a “tax on everything.” But rather than […]
Apr 19 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — Whatever else it may be, this budget is certainly long: at 739 pages and 232,903 words, by far the longest in Canadian history. The previous record was 528 pages, in 2015. The great Paul Martin budget of 1995 took only 197 pages to rescue Canada’s finances from disaster, while the landmark tax reform budgets of […]
Apr 18 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — The maxim in politics is usually “underpromise and overdeliver.” Not so for the Liberals’ next budget, their first in (ahem) more than two years. In the meantime we have had a “fiscal snapshot,” a Speech from the Throne and a fall economic statement, each helping to build expectations for the budget, if only by dint […]
Apr 7 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s call for a global corporate minimum tax is being hailed in some quarters as a return to American leadership. That’s one word for it, I suppose. Speaking to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on Monday, Ms. Yellen called for an end to the “30-year race to the bottom on […]
Apr 2 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — I don’t want to alarm you, but you might like to know that the federal government is about to take over the media. Perhaps you will think I am exaggerating. But before the spring is out, based on its own announced timeline, there won’t be a patch of grass on the media landscape – broadcasting […]
Mar 30 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — A year ago about this time, after it had decided the novel coronavirus posed a serious risk to the public but before it had decided to do anything to stop it, the government attempted to shut down Parliament for two years. Well, not shut down, exactly: Parliament would have still sat, as it does now […]
Mar 26 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — It’s early days, but the biggest winner from Thursday’s Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act could turn out to be Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole. To be sure, the ruling is a clear victory for Justin Trudeau’s government, fully vindicating its choice of pricing carbon and other greenhouse […]
Mar 25 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — Somewhere in the bowels of Ottawa, officials are quietly preparing contingency plans for a fiscal bailout of Newfoundland, should that become necessary. They may wish to add Ontario to their plans. Ontario’s fiscal situation was dire before the pandemic; it has grown much worse because of the pandemic; and it is going to get still […]
Mar 23 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — Erin O’Toole’s speech to the Conservative convention, admonishing party members to “change” and “grow,” was well received on the whole. One passage attracted particular notice: “We must present new ideas, not make the same arguments hoping that maybe this time more Canadians will come around to our position.” It sounds bold, clear-eyed, logical. But is […]
Mar 19 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — The best way to think about the proposed acquisition of Shaw Communications Inc. by Rogers Communications Inc. is first to ask: Why do we have a telecommunications industry in the first place? What is telecommunications for? What, come to that, is an economy for? Is it to give people something to do with their hands? […]
Mar 16 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — It wouldn’t be a royal scandal without a bevy of Canadian pundits seizing on it to demand the abolition of the monarchy. Or never mind royal scandal: royal visit, royal lunch, royal flick of a light-switch – no occasion is too trivial to propose dismantling a centuries-old institution that is the foundation of our entire […]
Mar 10 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — A year into the pandemic, its legacy appears mixed. On the one hand, you have the millions of dead, the tens of millions sickened, the worldwide paralysis of social and economic life around the planet, and all that. On the other hand, it has helped make the world safe for big government. As the Prime […]
Mar 5 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — There is a tension at the heart of campaign finance law that never goes away. The rules are designed to limit the influence of money in politics. But the rules are set by politicians. Who are always ravenous for money. We are seeing this dynamic play out once again in Ontario. No sooner had the […]
Mar 2 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — You have to feel for Erin O’Toole. The Conservative Leader has been busily reinventing himself at regular intervals – as the principled, “True Blue” candidate of the leadership race who wants to make Canada “the world’s freest economy,” but also the union-courting leader who rails against “bad trade deals” and is in no hurry to […]
Feb 24 2021 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — The recent report of the Commons finance committee contains 145 separate recommendations for this spring’s federal budget. They urge the government to spend more on everything from long-term care to universal pharmacare to a national early learning and child-care system and beyond: on young and old, on education and housing, on cities, on airports, on […]