Articles by Andrew Coyne

Feb 15 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Consider solicitor-client privilege officially waived. The prime minister has spent the last several days disclosing, line by tendentious line, the contents of his discussions with the former attorney general in September of last year. First we were informed that he “never directed” Jody Wilson-Raybould to put a stop to the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. Next, […]

Feb 13 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — There was never any doubt the Liberal majority on the Commons justice committee would block an investigation into the SNC-Lavalin affair. The only question was how. The frightened rabbits on the government side were not about to investigate their masters in the Prime Minister’s Office, let alone on such an explosive question as whether they […]

Feb 11 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — It has been four days now since it was reported that officials in the Prime Minister’s Office had pressured the former attorney-general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to have fraud and corruption charges dropped against SNC-Lavalin, the Quebec engineering and construction giant, and we have yet to hear a direct, on-the-record denial of the allegations by either side. […]

Feb 9 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Can it be? Can a large, politically sensitive corporation with a history of buying influence avoid prosecution in this country by the mere expedient of a phone call to the prime minister’s office? Can the prime minister’s staff have charges against the corporation dropped by a quick call to the minister of justice? Is that […]

Feb 7 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — “There was a time,” Catherine Tait was saying, “when cultural imperialism was absolutely accepted.” The CBC president was musing, at an industry conference in Ottawa last week, about the heyday of the British and French Empires, when if “you were the viceroy of India you would feel that you were doing only good for the […]

Feb 4 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — I have an urgent warning for the people of Canada. Even now, certain agents are plotting to influence the result of the next election campaign by means of stealth and deception. Posing as ordinary Canadians, they plan to use social media to spread falsehoods designed to inflame public opinion, using the latest micro-targeting technologies to […]

Jan 30 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — When it comes to the parties’ positions on climate change, the public will not lack for choice in the next election: you can have just about any type of climate change policy you want, that is, as long as it’s irresponsible. There is, first, the People’s Party, whose leader, Maxime Bernier, insists he thinks climate […]

Jan 29 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — First off, can we please stop the references to party leaders making “campaign-style” speeches? What other kind is there? They’re all campaign-style speeches, nowadays, because the campaign is already under way — because it is always on. Anyway, in what was inevitably described as a “campaign-style” speech to caucus in Ottawa over the weekend, Andrew […]

Jan 25 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — “I regret that my comments with respect to the legal proceedings of Ms. Meng have created confusion. I misspoke. These comments do not accurately represent my position on this issue.” So now repents John McCallum, ambassador of Canada to the People’s Republic of China, in a statement issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Plainly […]

Jan 24 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Presumably the ambassador of Canada to China speaks for the government of Canada in China. But what are we to make of it when the same ambassador appears to be speaking for the government of China in Canada? In a news conference with Chinese-language journalists in Markham, Ont., Tuesday — the national media were not […]

Jan 21 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Seldom has “profitable federalism” seemed quite so … mercenary. The phrase, popularized by Robert Bourassa to describe Quebec’s emotionless relationship with the rest of Canada — an update on Duplessis’s “rendez-vous notre butin” — was always fairly grubby in intent, but typically appeared shrouded in the majestic purple of nationalist agitprop, in which Quebec is […]

Jan 19 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — You have to feel for the Liberal Party of Canada, who are surely the real victims in the Karen Wang affair. The party had innocently selected the B.C. daycare operator to run in next month’s byelection in Burnaby South based solely on her obvious merits as a failed former candidate for the provincial Liberals in […]

Jan 15 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Not content with taking Canadians hostage, China is now threatening to kill them. It took nearly four years from his December 2014 arrest for the Chinese legal system to convict and sentence Robert Schellenberg for drug trafficking. Since the Dec. 1 arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese technology giant […]

Jan 11 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — This week’s populist panic concerns a plot to impose a world government on Canada. I’m just kidding, of course: populists are in a panic about that every week. Only this time they can point to an actual proposal — albeit one that has zero chance of ever being enacted. It’s called the Campaign for a […]

Jan 9 2019 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The prime minister’s belated decision to call a byelection in Burnaby South, one of three to be held on Feb. 25, brings to a close one of the more entertaining displays of bipartisan humbug in recent political history. The B.C. riding has been without an MP since New Democrat Kennedy Stewart stepped down in September […]