Aug 9 2018 — Colby Cosh — National Post — In yesterday’s Financial Post, the Calgary economist Jack Mintz asked the question “Why are carbon taxes so unpopular?”, pointing out that plenty of countries and jurisdictions have commitments to climate progress and energy efficiency but that few use this particular policy instrument. I guess Jack wouldn’t have had much of a column if he had […]
May 3 2018 — Colby Cosh — National Post — One thing Canada cannot ordinarily be accused of is being slow to pat itself on the back. And yet! When it comes to the failure of Kevin O’Leary’s quixotic campaign for the federal Conservative leadership, we have a sort of unnoticed national mystery that demands an explanation. Whether or not you were a fan of […]
Apr 21 2018 — Colby Cosh — National Post — On Sunday morning, Jason Kenney — who would certainly be at the top of the board if there were betting on the next premier of Alberta — tweeted a link about the Trans Mountain pipeline crisis with the comment: “Canada is broken.” This seemingly flippant remark made a lot of people angry, and most everybody […]
Apr 9 2018 — Colby Cosh — National Post — On Sunday night, the infrastructure company Kinder Morgan announced that it is mothballing the planned expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline and will cancel the project unless it has an agreement among “stakeholders” before May 31. Kinder Morgan’s press release goes on to describe what such an “agreement” means: the government of British Columbia has […]
Feb 7 2018 — Colby Cosh — National Post — No doubt what you all want to hear from Edmonton right now is how Alberta’s wine war on British Columbia, declared Tuesday, is affecting the common man. As far as I can tell he hasn’t noticed. Of course it will take some time for our centralized liquor warehouse (which is still, unlike the retailing end, […]
Dec 22 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — Everybody who has written about the prime minister’s violations of the federal Conflict of Interest Act—even if they did so cautiously, long in advance of this week’s formal finding of guilt by the Ethics Commissioner—is suddenly meeting with a great deal of social media resistance. I don’t think I’ve touched the Aga Khan-spiracy issue personally, […]
Dec 8 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — My favourite part of the fair has always been the sideshow. And when it comes to Justin Trudeau’s official visit to China, the sideshow definitely turned out to be the most interesting part of the proceedings. Interpreting the outcome of the visit involves a certain amount of old-fashioned Kremlinology, applied to both sides, but it […]
Oct 20 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — A colleague told me the other day that I should write a column about Finance Minister Bill Morneau — basically, because no columnist should pass up a chance to face wash some politician for ineptitude or deviousness. This struck me as a strong argument. But my response was that I would never dream of treating […]
Sep 18 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — I have a problem starting this column: what do we call the debate currently being held on Liberal changes to tax rules that mostly affect high-paid professionals? Is there a neutral label that a columnist can use to refer to the overall argument? The Liberals, as I am sure you have heard, have some proposals […]
Aug 10 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — Let me be the first to propose the silly-but-I-sort-of-half-believe-it theory of Brad Wall’s retirement from politics. It is, perhaps at least partly, about his son’s music career. Wall’s kid Colter (you’ll notice that classic Western Hockey League first name) is a talented country singer-songwriter whose first full LP came out this summer. He is on […]
Jul 31 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — With the wedding of Alberta’s right-wing parties complete, former Wildrose Party leader and MP Brian Jean was first out of the gate last week with a formal campaign for the leadership of the United Conservatives. Jean released what he would call a list of policies, and what I would probably just call a pamphlet, on […]
Jul 11 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — Amidst great controversy over the Canadian government reaching a $10.5-million legal settlement with Canadian terrorist offspring Omar Khadr, I have a suggestion: what if we agreed to regard the payment as a prize for inadvertently educating the public? It should be unusually obvious from the opinion pages of the last few days (with “opinion pages” […]
Jul 5 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — Nothing makes me feel that my lifetime is a cage, narrow and confining, so much as the occasional bubblings-up of the Omar Khadr saga. July 27 will mark the 15th anniversary of the Afghanistan firefight in which Khadr was shot to pieces and captured. Khadr is now 30, and still on bail: he has spent […]
Jun 30 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — Could it be that going all-in on a 150th anniversary… was a mistake? One hundred and fifty is sort of an awkward number to be the occasion for a grand national celebration. That the word “sesquicentennial” exists, and that it is only ever used to describe contrived festivals of this sort, seems like a hint. […]
Jun 26 2017 — Colby Cosh — National Post — Everybody says that British Columbia politics is SOOO CRAZY right now because there’s a hung legislature and political parties are cynically trying to make the best use of their leverage. I am not sure why this is considered madness; it looks a lot like business as usual. But, meanwhile, in Alberta, electoral politics have been […]