Jul 20 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Going into this year’s meeting of the premiers, in their usual drag as the Council of the Federation, the talk was all about the need for unity. The country’s economy was under attack from Donald Trump. It was time for premiers to get serious, at long last, about dismantling the barriers to trade between the […]
Jul 18 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — So far Donald Trump has followed the same script, in the wake of the Helsinki disaster, he has followed on every previous occasion, after he has said or done something unusually appalling: after insulting the grieving parents of a fallen war hero, or bragging of his ability to “grab them by the pussy,” or blaming […]
Jul 17 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Bowing to the opposition parties’ demands, the Commons Citizenship and Immigration committee will hold special hearings this month on what Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel is calling the “border crisis.” The notion that there is a crisis on the border — that Canada is being inundated by a tide of asylum claimants crossing the border […]
Jul 13 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — On Thursday, at an impromptu press conference after his spectacular near-derailing of the NATO summit, Donald Trump was asked about next week’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. How did he think they would get along? The president declined to identify Putin as either a friend or enemy, but as a “competitor.” Still, “he’s been […]
Jul 9 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — For once Jeremy Corbyn, at most times inapt, had it right. “The Chequers compromise,” the Labour Party leader told the British House of Commons, “took two years to reach, and just two days to unravel.” The Chequers compromise to which he referred was last week’s agreement, if that’s what it was, among members of Theresa […]
Jul 6 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — When it first surfaced that, 18 years ago, a young reporter had accused Justin Trudeau of groping her, it seemed the prime minister was caught in a trap of his own making. Deny the accusation, published in an unsigned article in the newspaper she worked for, the Creston Valley Advance, and he would be contradicting […]
Jul 5 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — All in all it’s been a fine season for the tu quoque. As America’s nervous breakdown continues apace, there has been a sudden outbreak of concern for the decline in civility, particularly among supporters of President Civility, Donald Trump. The signs, it seems, are everywhere: the Homeland Security secretary was hounded out of a restaurant […]
Jun 30 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — It’s probably nothing. It was just a tweet, after all. But when the federal environment minister, Catherine McKenna, posted her approval of a recent Canada Pension Plan Investment Board decision, it caused a little flutter of alarm among those who follow these things. “Now, this is something that Canadians can be proud of,” she cheered, […]
Jun 28 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — He has to address this. Ever since the story first surfaced — or rather, resurfaced — that Justin Trudeau had allegedly groped a young reporter for the Creston Valley Advance in 2000, his office has been issuing, and reissuing, the same statement. The prime minister “remembers being in” the small British Columbia town for an […]
Jun 26 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — Did the Trudeau government pull a fast one on the provinces, as political leaders in Alberta and Saskatchewan contend, stealthily renewing the equalization program for another five years without change, debate or even so much as a heads-up? Or were the provinces kept fully apprised throughout, as Finance officials reply, not only in correspondence but […]
Jun 23 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The journalist Susan Delacourt raised eyebrows recently with a column floating the possibility of a summer election. It wasn’t clear what set her off — it would rather fly in the face of federal legislation fixing Oct. 21, 2019 as the date, among other objections — aside from the mounting threat to the country’s well-being […]
Jun 20 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — You must understand, there is never going to be a turning point. People keep expecting, even predicting one: the dramatic “have you no decency, sir” moment when Donald Trump at long last goes too far, even for his supporters, and begins his inevitable decline and fall. But life is not a movie, and resists our […]
Jun 19 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — For twelve exciting hours last week, Parliamentary business was held up by a Conservative procedural tactic forcing a vote on every one of 200 items in the Main Estimates. The marathon voting session was in protest at the Liberal government’s failure to release detailed projections of the cost to Canadian households of pricing emissions of […]
Jun 16 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — The Great Trade War of 2018, historians will record, began June 1 with the imposition of steep tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum into the United States, including Canada’s. The war, that is, began without us. The only question is how we will respond. Opinion has divided sharply. The War Party, including the government […]
Jun 14 2018 — Andrew Coyne — National Post — How did supply management, of all things, come to be at the centre of everything? The policy, under which farmers in a number of sectors — milk, cheese, eggs, poultry — are organized into government-approved price-fixing rings, enforced by a complex system of quotas and protected by prohibitive tariffs on imports of the same goods, […]