Dan Knight: Recounts, Power, and the Liberal March to Majority

This morning, in a quiet hall on the windswept coast of Newfoundland, democracy is going to do what it is supposed to do. Its counting. In a federal election defined by razor-thin margins and electoral fatigue, Canada’s tightest race — Terra Nova – The Peninsulas — is undergoing a judicial recount. Not because of protests or partisanship, but because the law demands it. When the margin is less than 0.1%, the ballots get counted again. That’s the rule. That’s the process. And it’s underway now.

What makes this recount so important isn’t the process — it’s the power behind the result.[…]

Born and raised in Newfoundland, Handrigan built his legal career in Grand Bank, eventually serving as a litigation lawyer before his appointment to the bench. He’s presided over high-profile cases involving criminal law, abuse compensation, and civil injunctions. In 2019, he instructed a jury in the Al Potter murder trial with clinical precision. In 2024, he ordered financial compensation for dozens of abuse victims who had been wrongly denied. On paper, that’s the mark of a judge committed to procedural fairness.

But look just a little deeper and the pattern becomes clearer. These aren’t rebellious rulings or populist pushbacks. They’re system-correcting decisions — the kind the establishment loves because they preserve the illusion of balance. That’s Handrigan’s specialty: smoothing over friction in a system designed by and for institutional power.

When, in 2024, he scheduled a hearing to block the sale of a local church in Portugal Cove South, he didn’t challenge the power structure behind the decision — he merely moderated it. As one legal analyst put it, “Handrigan doesn’t disrupt. He manages.”

And that’s the issue here.

Flashback time.