Apr 25 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Had it been contested on the same basis as the election that accompanied it, Tuesday’s referendum on electoral reform in Prince Edward Island would have passed handily, winning a solid majority of the province’s 27 ridings. As it was, however, the proposition failed for having the support of only 48.8 per cent of the vote […]
Apr 22 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The presidency of Donald Trump has been one long and largely successful exercise in defining expectations down, or rather in defining them into the ground. Trump is not just deficient with respect to virtually every quality one could reasonably expect of a president or a man: he is its opposite. Do you expect a president […]
Apr 17 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The consensus forecast of the impact of a United Conservative Party victory in Alberta on the rest of the country was: trouble ahead. Hadn’t its leader, Jason Kenney, promised to “stand up” for the province’s oil and gas industry, and “fight for a fair deal” in the federation? Didn’t the party platform promise to cut […]
Apr 16 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The Nov. 30, 2015 election that brought the Liberal party to power in Newfoundland and Labrador marked the demise of the last nominally Conservative government in the country. After the election of a Liberal federal government the previous month and the defeat of the once-mighty Alberta Progressive Conservatives in the spring, observers wondered whether Conservatism, […]
Apr 12 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Naturally, they put it in an omnibus bill. Buried deep inside the 392 pages of Bill C-97, the budget implementation bill, is a package of amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that would turn decades of Canadian refugee policy on its head. The changes would disqualify from consideration refugee claimants who had previously […]
Apr 10 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The expulsion of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus is a great wrong, and would be whether it were legal or not. It is wrong because they did nothing to deserve such treatment, and wrong because it should not be up to the leader — and make no mistake, this was Justin […]
Apr 8 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The early reviews of Justin Trudeau’s threat to sue Andrew Scheer for his comments on the SNC-Lavalin affair have not been kind: an “unfathomably stupid move … absolutely bonkers … the most ill-advised defamation suit since Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensbury.” But hold on. Maybe that’s what he wants people to think. Take […]
Apr 7 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Where is the scandal here, ask the worldly-wise? No money changed hands, no crimes were committed, not even a whiff of sex. When it comes down to it, isn’t this all just a disagreement between a couple of cabinet ministers? This is the scandal in the SNC-Lavalin affair. It isn’t just that the prime minister […]
Apr 2 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — “Ultimately the choice that is before you,” Jody Wilson-Raybould pleaded with her caucus colleagues, in a letter written hours before they passed sentence on her, “is about what kind of party you want to be a part of, what values it will uphold, the vision that animates it, and indeed the type of people it […]
Mar 30 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Let us dispense with the obvious off the top. As the duly elected premier of Quebec, in possession of a majority of the seats in the provincial legislature, François Legault has the indisputable authority to pass legislation banning the display of religious symbols by persons employed in certain “positions of authority” in the public service: […]
Mar 29 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — After all the distractions and red herrings, after all the character assassination and speculation about motives, after all the attempts to blur distinctions that are crystal clear or to twist words to mean their opposite, after all the desperate attempts to keep her from testifying, after all the lies, Jody Wilson-Raybould has brought things crashing […]
Mar 26 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The usual anonymous sources are now whispering that the reason she was fired had nothing to do with her refusal to kill the prosecution of Liberal-friendly SNC-Lavalin. Wait, I thought it was all Scott Brison’s fault. The usual anonymous sources are now whispering to reporters that the reason Jody Wilson-Raybould was fired as minister of […]
Mar 21 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — If you weren’t careful, you might have missed it: a brief 160-word item, tucked deep inside the budget, labelled Supporting Canadian Journalism. Mostly it was a rehash of the measures already announced in November’s Fall Economic Statement: a labour cost subsidy (in the form of a tax credit — presumably this sounds more palatable) for […]
Mar 19 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The 2019 federal budget, like all recent federal budgets, is a tribute to the pleasures of endless economic growth. In the days when inflation was high, interest rates were volatile and growth was very stop and go, budgeting was hard work. Reining in runaway deficits absorbed most of the energies of finance ministers for the […]
Mar 16 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Hours later, Andrew Scheer said the things he should have said the first time. Responding to the horrific massacre of Muslims at prayer in New Zealand, the Conservative leader issued a statement Friday afternoon expressing his “profound condemnation of this cowardly and hateful attack on the Muslim community” along with “the type of extreme and […]