While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Andrew Coyne.
The Conservative activist Ben Woodfinden was in despair. “I’m more depressed about the state of conservative politics in Canada right now than I think I’ve ever been,” he lamented in a widely read post online. “I look at all sorts of conservative camps and factions right now and I see intellectual poverty everywhere.” The comment was occasioned, in particular, by...
There are, it is sometimes said, only six people in Canada who understand the equalization formula, and five of them are dead. This is not entirely a joke. Equalization – the system of federal transfers to provinces whose “fiscal capacity” is judged to be below the national average – has become so overloaded with political fixes over the years, in...
Annual gatherings of the great democracies in the age of Donald Trump have acquired a certain … rhythm. There is the meeting that takes place before the President arrives, when all is as it usually is between world leaders of the same broad ideological hue: convivial open sessions, chummy photo-ops, urgent side-conferences. Then there is what happens after he gets...
Suddenly, pipelines are all the rage. Time was when you couldn’t get a pipeline built in this country, for love or money. Three pipeline proposals – Northern Gateway, Energy East and Keystone XL – came and went, dead of political hostility, regulatory obstacles or both. Governments, some of them anyway, seemed positively eager to discourage them. Federal legislation, Bill C-69...
Canada’s national holiday and America’s fall within a few days of each other, yet celebrate two very different things. Each celebrates their respective country’s birth, of course, but they define this in different ways. The American commemorates a breach, an abrupt and indeed violent rupture with the imperial power; the Canadian, the date scheduled for its inception as a federal...
Shuffles of the opposition front bench – the roster of critics, or as the Conservatives prefer, shadow ministers, assigned to dog the government ministers for their respective portfolios – rarely excite much notice. That has been especially true of the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre: partly because there are so many critics (83, in the current incarnation, including shadow associate ministers...
To govern is to choose, the old adage runs. The old adage is wrong. More often, to govern is to straddle. Politicians are disinclined to choose by nature, of course: left unsupervised, they will nearly always prefer guns and butter to guns or butter. But many of the most important issues do not lend themselves to binary, either-or choices. The...
I imagine Mark Carney was something of an autocrat even in the cradle, issuing directives and insulting subordinates from the earliest age. “Yeah, I’m not feeling this WubbaNub. Got any others?” “This is not a helpful suggestion. Go back and rework it to a different nap time.”
The reviews have not been kind. “A disaster.” A “catastrophe.” The “worst strategic blunder the U.S. has made post-World War II.” Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and trenchant geopolitical observer, perhaps said it best: “Trump said he demanded unconditional surrender, we just didn’t know he meant America’s.” What they are describing, of course, is the Trump-Iran “deal,” or...
This fall’s referendum on secession in Alberta – well, not on secession, but on whether to have a referendum on secession – promises another chance to observe a familiar phenomenon: federalists “fighting for Canada” on separatist terms. There has been no shortage of volunteers to play Captain Canada in the campaign to come, notably Danielle Smith, the Premier, and Pierre...
Fears of artificial intelligence tend to fall into two camps. On one hand, there is widespread anxiety that we are allowing AI to develop too fast, too far, beyond our ability to prevent or mitigate its potential harms. These range from the threat to privacy, to the problems of telling what is real or human from AI-generated fakery, to the...
This time they didn’t just bury it: they omitted it altogether. Over the years the annual reports of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board have become longer and longer, and more and more opaque. This year’s is no exception, weighing in at a prodigious 84,000 words, most of it unintelligible – deliberately so, one is forced to conclude. Nevertheless, there...
It is possible you have never heard of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence. It meets just once or twice a year – these days not even that – to provide Canadian and American military leaders with the opportunity for a full and frank exchange of views on bilateral defence issues. But it is far from the only instrument of...
The recorded history of Canada stretches back more than 500 years; the unrecorded history, many thousands. It is one of the world’s oldest continuously existing democracies, with a Constitution whose principal features – monarchical, federal, parliamentary, with an independent judiciary and (ahem) an unelected Senate – have remained unchanged since 1867.
The controversy over Louise Arbour’s appointment as Governor-General is unusual in that both sides cite the same set of facts. She’s a former Supreme Court justice, say her supporters, a former international war-crimes prosecutor, and a former UN high commissioner for human rights, among a long list of other offices and laurels. Exactly, say her opponents: a bona fide member...
I feel perhaps I have been unfair to Donald Trump. Regular readers will know that he has been the subject of the occasional reproof in these corners. Among other things, it has been suggested that he is insane, incompetent, corrupt, treasonous, bottomlessly ignorant, easily manipulated, a Batman villain, and a modern-day Nero: possessed of every vice, devoid of every virtue...
The scandal isn’t what’s illegal. The scandal is what’s legal. – Michael Kinsley What is so scandalous about a separatist group getting its hands on the Alberta voter list, including the names, addresses and phone numbers of nearly three million of the province’s citizens? Is it that the list appears to have been illegally obtained, and passed on to the...
It’s been nearly a week, and we are still no closer to knowing what the Carney government means when it talks about setting up “Canada’s first sovereign wealth fund.” I don’t just mean what it would do, or how it would work, or what problem it’s intended to solve. I mean, quite literally, what is it? I suspect the government...
If you have been wondering what meaning to attach to that irritating phrase the Carney Liberals use to describe themselves, “Canada’s New Government” – which was irritating enough when it was first employed, under Stephen Harper, when it was actually a new government – wonder no longer. As this Spring Economic Update makes abundantly clear, it means nothing whatever. Or...
Was John Turner right? Is Donald Trump’s weaponization of Canada’s dependence on trade with the United States vindication of the Liberal leader’s dire prophecies during the 1988 election campaign? Is this the bitter fruit of the Mulroney government’s decision, all those years ago, to sign a free-trade agreement with the United States?
Opinion on Canada’s New! Liberal! Majority! Government! has tended to divide into two camps. On one hand are those, mostly to be found on the Conservative end of things, who denounce the process by which the Liberals attained their majority – five opposition MPs, crossing the floor one after the other, like baby ducks – as illegitimate, even undemocratic. Canadians...
Where did this idea come from, of Canada joining the European Union? I know the Prime Minister likes to say that Canada is “the most European of the non-European countries,” whatever that means. (More European than, say, Argentina? Uruguay? New Zealand?) And sure, we’ve all joked about it, at least once, in the heat of Donald Trump’s latest outrage (“that’s...
Seeking to explain just where the Liberals draw the line on accepting members of other parties into their midst, House Leader Steven MacKinnon said the party would “keep a light on and a door open for all of those who want to support Liberal Party principles,” which he described as “immutable.” And of course, he’s right. Liberal policies may come...
Almost since its inception, the Senate of Canada has been the subject of proposals for reform. Now there are the first faint stirrings of a new movement: Senate unreform. Ten years after Justin Trudeau introduced his “merit-based, non-partisan” process for appointing senators there are whispers that the whole thing might be about to be called off. The Globe and Mail...
By the time you read this, U.S. armed forces may well have launched a ground war in Iran. Or they may have begun to withdraw from the region and go home. There could be a ceasefire, in exchange for Iran’s agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz. Or the war could have escalated further, with stepped-up U.S. attacks on Iranian...
Somewhere, James Laxer is shedding a wistful tear. Along with Mel Watkins, Cy Gonick and others, Mr. Laxer led the radical Waffle faction within the federal NDP in the late 1960s and early 1970s, whose mission was to pull the party sharply to the left. They advocated for nationalization of major industries, strict limits on foreign ownership, sharply higher taxes...
No one knows where Donald Trump got the notion of annexing Canada. It hasn’t been seriously suggested by any significant figure in American politics for at least a century. There has been next to no take-up of the proposal, even among his MAGA followers. But the underlying premises – the idea that America must have complete dominion over the Western...
The Supreme Court spent most of this week hearing oral arguments in what is widely known as the Bill 21 case, after the infamous Quebec law banning the wearing of religious symbols in much of the public sector – effectively a hiring bar on observant members of certain religious minorities. Only it isn’t really Bill 21 that is at issue...
It’s not true to say that the end justifies the means. Neither is it true that it never does. The true statement is: some ends justify some means. A lot of people who ought to know better seem to have persuaded themselves that the U.S.-Israel war on Iran (in? against? with?) is a case of the end justifying the means...
A Liberal majority looks all but inevitable. Three Conservative MPs and one New Democrat having crossed the floor, the Liberals now have 170 seats out of 343 in the House. A probable sweep of the three by-elections scheduled for April 13 would leave them with 173, enough to outvote the combined opposition even without the help of the Speaker. That’s...
When president George H.W. Bush went to war against Iraq in 1991, he sought and won the consent of the Congress of the United States. Resolutions authorizing military force passed the House, by a margin of 250 to 183, and the Senate, 52-47. Mr. Bush had earlier secured the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 678. The cause was...
There will be no Ceausescu moment, no “at long last sir have you no decency” turning point, no dramatic climax in which the tyrant’s power suddenly evaporates: That instantaneous, simultaneous crystallizing of long-inchoate doubts, wherein those who feared him lose their fear, and those who believed in him lose their faith. Life rarely supplies the needs of narrative, and if...
Danielle Smith has a problem. Her government is heading toward a deficit projected, before Thursday’s budget, at $10-billion. This is only partly because it overestimated oil revenues, with oil prices now projected at roughly $5 to $10 a barrel lower than forecast in last year’s budget. It is because the government set spending at levels that could only be sustained...
In his celebrated speech to the World Economic Forum at Davos, warning middle powers of the perils of integration with predatory great powers, the Prime Minister also warned against one “understandable” response: each country retreating within its own borders, supplying critical needs domestically, in the search for “strategic autonomy.” “A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less...
By now, nearly everyone has had a whack at Conservative MP Jamil Jivani’s bizarre solo diplomatic mission to Washington. It was never clear what the trip was supposed to accomplish. Mr. Jivani does not represent the government of Canada; he does not even represent his own party. There was nothing he could offer the Americans, and nothing they could offer...
They are greyer now: greyer of hair and face, but also in perception. In their younger days, they saw things more in black and white, as we saw them. But the years have passed, and now we see them through a mist of … what? Nostalgia? Ambivalence? Maybe say complexity, and respect, and, finally, gratitude. They are the lions in...
Is artificial intelligence the salvation of mankind, or its downfall? Are markets justified in bidding up AI stocks as high as they have, or is it all a bubble? Will we look back on the hundreds of billions of dollars the AI titans are currently investing in capacity as having laid the foundations for a new age of prosperity, or...
It is doubtful any country has ever been in quite the national security dilemma Canada now finds itself in: with so much land and so few people to defend it; wedged between two expansionist superpowers, one of which was until very recently our best defence against the other, but which has since become more or less aligned with it. The...
Suppose there were a country, let’s call it Outlandia, that declared its intent to annex Canada – to take over its territory and subject its people to its rule – if not by military means, certainly by economic. Now suppose a group of fellow travellers within Canada offered to assist Outlandia with its hostile takeover. Nothing violent, mind you, but...
The Prime Minister’s speech at Davos was on Jan. 20. In the days since then, Donald Trump or his officials have: claimed, without evidence, that the Prime Minister had retracted the speech in a private conversation with the President; referred to the Prime Minister, for the first time, as “Governor” Carney; threatened to impose a 100-per-cent tariff on Canada in...
Mark Carney’s Davos speech appears to have caught Canadians’ attention. The Angus Reid Institute has a new poll out showing him with a 60-per-cent “positive” rating (to 34 per cent “negative”), up eight points since December. Spark Insights has him at 61 per cent. And Pierre Poilievre? Just 36 per cent rate him positively, according to Angus Reid; 39 per...
The War of the Greenlandic Accession appears to have ended before it began, the President of the United States having supposedly negotiated a deal on the island’s future with the Secretary-General of NATO, a deal that a) no one can describe in any detail, b) neither of them has any mandate to negotiate and c) appears to amount to a...
Well, that got their attention. Since the Prime Minister’s visit to China, the American media – and social media – have been filled with expressions of shock and amazement. For critics of Donald Trump, it was payback for his bullying and abusive treatment of America’s nearest neighbour and historic ally. For the President’s supporters, it was a sign of Canadian...
Perhaps you know this story. The CBC once held a contest in which the object was to complete the phrase “as Canadian as … ”, in the style of “as American as apple pie.” The winning entry: “As Canadian as possible, under the circumstances.” It was a self-deprecating joke about Canadian nationalism, at the time. Today, it describes a very...
Which is the most ludicrous part of the Trump administration’s attempt to portray the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, as a criminal? Is it the suggestion that the distinguished 35-year public servant somehow took it into his head, at the end of a career unmarked by any previous stain on his integrity, to try to smuggle a $2.5-billion...
At some point almost every young person comes to one of two startling realizations, that seem to upend everything they have ever been taught. The first: We’re the bad guys. America, Canada, the West: We’ve done all sorts of terrible things! All that rot about democracy and freedom, fighting dictatorships and all that, when it’s our leaders who are the...
Occam’s razor is the principle that the most plausible explanation of events is the simplest. Most often this is true. To account for Donald Trump, however, we need a different hermeneutical instrument. Say hello to Occam’s kazoo: the principle that the most plausible explanation, so far as Mr. Trump is involved, is invariably the stupidest. To understand his motives in...
The pollsters are trying to tell us something. For much of the past year, the dominant strain of Canadian political coverage has focused on the struggles of Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, especially as contrasted with the brilliant successes of his opponent, Mark Carney. How could it not? Mr. Poilievre saw a 25-point lead evaporate in the space of two...
The Liberal government has cribbed from the Conservative playbook as opponents on the left and right have faltered. But in 2026 they may face new challenges – including a renewed opposition
Bill C-15, “An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget,” is 634 pages long. It creates four new Acts, repeals six more, and amends at least 45 others, on matters ranging from stablecoins to broadcasting to the marketing of freshwater fish. It is, in short, an omnibus bill, the sort with which we have grown all too familiar in...
I wish I could say I told you so. A point I have tried to make over the last year or so is that Donald Trump can only get worse: that however corrupt or incompetent or dictatorial or treasonous or insane he may appear at any given moment, it will inevitably come to be seen as a relative golden age...
Everyone could find something to hate about the energy agreement – technically, the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding – Mark Carney and Danielle Smith struck last week. For the right, the conditions on federal support for a heavy oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast – notably, a tightened provincial carbon pricing regime – are too onerous, if not altogether...
Boom. Until this week, among the more reliable constants in Canadian politics were that the federal Liberals would oppose building any new pipelines to the B.C. coast (the Trans Mountain exception proving the rule); that Alberta’s United Conservatives would oppose any extension of carbon pricing (beyond what the province already had in place); and that the two governing parties, so...
Yes, the Canadian health care system is a mess. Though we spend more than all but a handful of developed countries on health care, we achieve middling outcomes, leaving Canada near the bottom of the international rankings in terms of value for money. Example: Though health care now consumes nearly half of provincial own-source revenues, surgery wait times, now 3...
Oh God. We’re really going to do this, are we: Repeat the same old psychodrama, rehearse the same preposterous fantasies, repeat the same extravagant lies? Thirty years after the last secession crisis, having averted a disaster by the narrowest of margins, we’re going to do it all again? Well, it’s not a certainty. But if the election scheduled for next...
You have to understand: it was always going to end this way. For all the efforts to hype the budget vote as suspenseful, for all the speculation over what the NDP or the Conservatives might or might not do, for all the indignation directed at the Liberals for failing to negotiate with the opposition, there was never any chance that...
In the words of the celebrated economist Peggy Lee: Is that all there is? Has there been a budget that was preceded by more breathless hype than this one? It was to be a budget full of “generational investments” that would “swing for the fences” and “define our next century.” On the other hand, it would also be full of...