Oct 28 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — Throughout the past week of parliamentary manoeuvring, it was hard not to detect in the government’s reactions a note of astonishment, even shock. The notion that a committee of Parliament might have the temerity to demand that ministers appear before it or that government papers be released to it – or worse yet, that the […]
Oct 23 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — So the government lives, whether it likes it or not. By voting against a Conservative motion to set up a committee of inquiry into the WE Charity scandal, the NDP has helped the Liberals win a vote they might have preferred to lose. The Liberals, that is, had earlier declared the vote a matter of […]
Oct 21 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — “Do we really want a committee,” an incredulous Pablo Rodriguez, Government House Leader, asked reporters on Tuesday, “that has the power to force the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, all ministers, to drop their work, the important work they’re doing and come testify?” There you have the nub of the question, at least as […]
Oct 16 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — As the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic washes over Europe and Canada, the United States is already into its third. The number of new cases, which had fallen to less than 36,000 a day as recently as last month, has surged to more than 50,000; forecasts suggest it will crest to 150,000 by the […]
Oct 14 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — With three weeks to go, the U.S. presidential election is coming down to a fight over about a half a dozen “battleground” states. Mind you, every U.S. presidential election comes down to a fight over half a dozen battleground states, usually the same ones: Florida and Ohio; Iowa and Wisconsin; North Carolina and Georgia, if […]
Oct 9 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — We need to talk about raising taxes. We need to talk about it because we are looking at a more or less permanent budget deficit if we do not. The recent report of the Parliamentary Budget Office, in which federal spending, driven to astronomic heights by the cost of pandemic relief programs, snaps sharply back […]
Oct 1 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — The day before Tuesday’s presidential debate, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a joint statement warning of “foreign actors” spreading “false and inconsistent information” in an attempt to “discredit the electoral process and undermine confidence in US democratic institutions.” The previous week, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting director, Chad Wolf, […]
Sep 29 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — Among the “four foundations” of the Throne Speech, along with fighting the pandemic, providing support through the crisis and, of course, “building back better,” was a pledge to “stand up for who we are as Canadians.” “We must never forget the values that make us who we are,” the speech crooned. Among those defining values […]
Sep 23 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — “I’ve struggled mightily with this decision,” British Columbia Premier John Horgan confided as he announced he would plunge the province into a snap election, three years after the last. “It did not come easily to me.” I’ll just bet. On the one hand, the election call makes a mockery of the 2017 confidence and supply […]
Sep 16 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — On the night he won the Conservative leadership – late that night – Erin O’Toole vowed before God, the press and any remaining television viewers that he would fight for the rights of all Canadians. “I’m in politics to defend the rights of Canadians,” he said, boasting of his record of “standing up for human […]
Sep 8 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — With his customary concern for accountability and due process, the Prime Minister has summarily declared Julie Payette to be an “excellent” Governor-General whom he has no intention of replacing, days after the launch of an independent review of her allegedly toxic employee relations, on the grounds that “nobody’s looking at any constitutional crises.” What can […]
Sep 4 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — Okay, okay, we get it. For weeks, the Liberals have been signalling that a major shift in policy is in the works, starting with this month’s Speech from the Throne. Rather than the rapid increases in spending of their first years in government, or the truly massive increase in spending since the pandemic – at […]
Sep 1 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — It’s been barely a week since Erin O’Toole was elected Conservative leader, and already the press gallery has helpfully laid out his agenda for him. He has to introduce himself to Canadians before the Liberals can “define” him. He has to unite the party, while turning his back on the social conservatives who elected him. […]
Aug 11 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — It began with a story in Saturday’s Toronto Star. The Prime Minister, it said, was thinking of ways to seize the “once in a century opportunity” of the COVID-19 pandemic to radically expand the scope and reach of government. “Now is the time,” the story said, summarizing the views of those close to him, to […]
Aug 7 2020 — Andrew Coyne — Globe and Mail — Until about the middle of June, the pandemic had been proceeding along roughly similar lines in the United States and Canada. To be sure, the U.S. had peaked higher and fallen slower: from about 100 new daily cases per million population at its spring high to 60 by the second week in June, versus 50 […]