We are watching the national anthem played as Canada’s mens soccer team advances to the second round of the Copa America tournament. It’s Canada Day weekend, which always stirs up sentimental patriotism, even when the mid-wits in the PMO change the words to O Canada. But something feels different.

This team, of course, looks nothing like Team Canada in the 1972 showdown with the Soviets, for instance. Demographically they’re Trudeau’s wet dream of races, ethnicities and languages. Fair enough. They made it through qualifying. Props.

But having changed the look of Canada to the world, just what remains of the nation that was gripped by the 1972 Canada/ Russia series, games so existential that Canadians felt a loss meant the death of a culture? What does today’s Canada stand for anymore to them? And why are elite politicians pushing so hard on a policy that has little support?

A recent Ipsos poll asked “Do you agree or disagree that ‘Canada is broken’?” The result? Conservatives: 96%/PPC: 86%/ Greens: 63%/ BQ: 58%/ NDP: 57%/ Liberals: 34%. Understand that what has changed for Conservatives is very different from the Bloc or NDP. But they are all adrift in Trudeau’s Canada.

As the players sang along to O Canada in Orlando it’s clear that Canada right now is not a nation. It’s a brand. One constructed by politicians, not the people of the country. Liberals apparently like it that way, but getting a lump in the throat from remembering our war dead or the creation of single-payer healthcare is so yesterday for the PMO posse. Governments like Canada’s have chucked their independence in deference to world governments deciding financial, health and military policy.

One friend says all that binds this new Canadian brand is hockey and equalization payments. With polling numbers such as these it’s fair to ask why the political class continues to push this aggressive WEF branding when so much of the nation prefers the old homegrown model? While immigration is a laudable goal, fire-hose immigration like Canada is seeing is kefafta.

It’s not just a Canada thing. No, this is a branding exercise writ globally. Look at the lineup for Chile that faced Canada on Saturday. Names such as Igor Lishnovsky, Erick Pulgar and Benjamin Kusevic hardly stir up the traditional profile of a South American nation. The Euro 2024 championships running simultaneously have cultural shocks to those who have not being paying attention.

The lineups of England, France, Belgium, Germany and even Italy feature players who are black, brown or Arab, reflecting the imperial reach of those countries a century ago. If the goal is to emulate the Jackie Robinson model of integrating through sport then this would seem to be a success. If it is, then why do banners around the pitch still rage about ending racism? Or is the real goal coercion? Do the Brussels bunch (as well as Canada’s elite) just like to lecture people about their faults so they can be re-structured?

There are holdouts to this movement. Hungary, Poland and the Balkan nations remain largely homogeneous culturally (while being threatened by the EU for not accepting more of the world’s wandering population). So do Asian nations like Japan. (You’re supposed to ignore them.) But it would be disingenuous to suggest that there is a simple way to reverse the course of this forced march, to protect the cultures that have existed in Europe for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years.

The Marseillaise has gone from a stirring revolutionary call to the tricoleure to sentimental background music for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Like Edith Piaf. All facilitated by the willing loss of cultural sovereignty in the Western world.

Not for nothing is Israel a rogue state for defying the WEF and the UN demands for a ceasefire as they avenge the heinous October 7 massacres by Hamas. Through its zombie president Joe Biden, the American power elite is telling Israel that they’re hurting energy rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Middle East. Be more like Ukraine, they say, and sacrifice a generation of your young men to keep natural gas domination out of the hands of Gasprom, Vladimir Putin’s piggyback.

Less Bibi Netanyahu and more Vladimir Zelensky, the plucky kleptocrat in Ché Guevara fatigues. Succumb, bitch.

Sometimes the message is subtle. Sometimes not so much. UFC star Connor MacGregor suggested that perhaps immigration was behind the anger of Irish protesters who rioted after an immigrant murdered five people. He was quickly  upraised by Taioseach hack Pauline O’Connell:  “If your views on other people’s identities go to make their lives unsafe, insecure, and cause them such deep discomfort that they cannot live in peace, then I believe that it is our job as legislators to restrict those freedoms for the common good.”

How did this brand-management happen? There is an old quote that goes, ‘For my friend everything. For my enemies the law.’ Indeed, the law has been used (or misused) to bring the unruly like MacGregor to heel. New “hate speech” laws have been enacted to trip up those who, like Michael Richards of Seinfeld fame, are made to disappear for upsetting audience members unhinged by comedy. It doesn’t stop there. New Canadian laws talk about multi-million dollar fines for denying the climate ruse.

As we predicted in November of 2023, “Next speech regulation is silence. Or non-speech. Under the new rules, silence will be no defence when the mob orders you to “wear the ribbon”. UC Berkeley Law Professor Savala Trepczynski gave away the game, saying that “White silence is incredibly powerful … It’s not neutral. It acts like a weapon.” Writes legal specialist Jonathan Turley, “In a world where silence is violence and civility is complicity, there is little room for true free speech.”

So sing out loud and proud when O Canada plays at this summer’s Olympics. Talk about sea to sea to sea. But don’t get any ideas about old Canada. Brand loyalty is the coming thing.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

With Nigel Farage and Reform U.K. from the right, and George Galloway and his Workers’ Party from the left, the populist element threatens to make the cheerless pantomime of British politics entertaining – and interesting – again.

The United Kingdom’s general election is days away. Thursday, July 4, a memorable date for American home rule, may see a degree of self-rule return to Britain as the liberal establishment is shaken in its heartland by populists from the right and left of the center of permanent government.

Last week current Conservative Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on video that British policy on Ukraine was “fixed” and that nothing would change if Labour won the election – as many expect they will.

Yet a rising tide of populism led by two charismatic figures has complicated the situation.

Despite attempts routinely seen in European nations to “lock out” populists from mainstream media, Nigel Farage’s Reform continues to surge. Mass rallies across the country combine with several polls showing his party now pushing the Conservatives into third place nationally in three polls.

When the first poll showed Reform a point ahead of the Tories, Farage claimed his party was now “the real opposition to Labour.”

BREAKING

Reform UK has just overtaken the Conservatives in the polls.

We are now the real opposition to Labour.

Join me on ITV1 in 20 minutes. pic.twitter.com/jrPaf86PbM

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 13, 2024

Farage has complained that his party is not being given fair media coverage. Reform have cautioned against believing mainstream media polls, as their own claim to show far stronger support – such as this from July 1.

As many former Conservative voters openly call for their party to get “zero seats,” Nigel Farage and George Galloway are rising in the polls to challenge both parties of government – widely seen by their traditional voter base as having betrayed them.

Almost all polls exclude Galloway’s Workers’ Party from their calculations, locking his voice out on screen. But it is his voice which has resonated with many who share his support of Gaza against Israel’s ongoing genocide.

Galloway claims that the established parties have “abandoned the working class.” He claims to stand against “the uniparty” of British politics, having denounced the “one-party state” of Britain in colorful terms in the past.

His recent sentiments on the merits of both the Labour and Conservative leaders will be shared by many.

“I have never seen an election in which two people who less deserve to be the Prime Minister of Britain are competing for that office.”

Workers Party of Britain leader George Galloway says voters are fed up with the main political parties. pic.twitter.com/88JotpxXcL

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 19, 2024

With Galloway from the left, and Farage from the right, the populist element threatens to make the cheerless pantomime of British politics entertaining – and interesting – again.

Farage came to prominence as a leading figure in the “Brexit” movement, which following then Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum, saw the U.K. vote in it to leave the European Union.

Many British voters – known as “remainers” – sought to remain in and seek to rejoin the E.U., and hope that a vote for the Labour Party will realize this ambition.

British Christian commentator Peter Hitchens criticized the referendum at the time, saying that it introduced a conflict over sovereignty that replaced another. He said that the referendum made the popular vote sovereign at the expense of Parliament, and that the membership of the E.U. had also done the same. This, he said in 2023, had diluted the power of Parliament overall.

'Ever since the 1970s the UK has given away so much of its sovereignty, and people don't realise how little room for manoeuvre the British Government has.'

Peter Hitchens and Alex Deane discuss the UK leaving the ECHR amid the growing migrant crisis. pic.twitter.com/zTLgowelR3

— GB News (@GBNEWS) August 14, 2023

Hitchens concluded that the referendum really contested the supremacy of Parliament in determining the fate of the nation.

Election as referendum on Parliament?

This election can be seen as a sort of second referendum – on the legacy of that Parliament and how its determination to act against the nation should be judged by its population.

The Conservative Party has ruled Britain for the last 14 years. It has attacked Libya (in 2011), unleashing waves of mass migration, which saw the party then call for integration and diversity as scandals over child sexual abuse (2010-2014)  and the public execution of a British soldier (2013) by immigrant populations hit the press.

The Conservatives, as with many other parties of the liberal consensus in the West, strongly supported lockdowns and burdened the nation with record borrowing to fund the destruction of the high street businesses, community groups and the education and development of children and young people. They aggressively promoted the so-called “vaccines,” with conservative commentator Andrew Neil saying it was “time to punish the unvaccinated.”

With its “winner takes all” system of “first past the post,” the party with the most votes in each constituency wins. This means Reform may take millions of votes, but still end up with very few seats.

Elections are not only a matter of who counts the votes. They are also determined by who draws the boundaries – in reality and in the media.

Mass migration breaks the game

Yet it is mass migration – and its profound effects on the politics, policing, and practices established in Britain which is mainly driving support to Farage’s Reform. Why is that the case?

It is a reality which can no longer be ruled out of bounds by the politics and media of the establishment.

Mass migration has increased significantly under the Tories, as the Conservatives are known. So have laws against free speech, including a National Security Act which threatens to criminalize investigative journalism. Nigel Farage was himself “debanked” under measures permitted by Conservative rule. The party of law and order has marked the nation by the absence of both. 

READ: Press freedom under threat as UK National Security Act could put journalists in jail

Christians have been prosecuted and cautioned by police for praying, preaching the Gospel, and singing hymns. In May 2024, the Daily Telegraph reported that “Christians are the most despised minority in Britain” as a result.

The U.K. now has the highest tax burden in 70 years, and it is set to rise higher still. Taxes have risen in the U.K. more sharply than in the U.S. or the E.U. in the last five years.

For these reasons the most vociferous opponents of the Conservative Party are now its own former core voters.

This election will be lost by the Conservatives. It may finish them. But a massive Labour victory is not guaranteed, and the chaos created by Labour and the Tories in Britain is driving people towards populism to secure a meaningful change – from the politics of national suicide.

A guide for Christian voters

The U.K.’s Christian Institute has produced a guide to all the parties’ policies, showing where each faction stands on issues of concern to the near 60 percent of the population which identifies as Christian, per the most recent census in 2021.

Nigel Farage’s Reform is the only party to oppose the LGBTQI agenda in schools. Reform also supports marriage with a proposed raise in the marred couples’ tax allowance. It wishes to abolish “hate crimes,” including repressive measures on speech, and has pledged to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits most meaningful action against mass migration. 

The elephant in the room

The migration issue remains one which dominates ordinary life in Britain, but whose mention has been routinely and deliberately excluded from mainstream debate and media coverage for the decades during which it has taken place.

Nigel Farage has won one referendum – on Britain leaving the E.U. in 2016. Most polls said he would lose that one. One said “Leave” would lose by 10 points.

With the elephant of migration now dominating what little room is left in Britain, Farage may be on course to deliver another profound shock to a system designed to conduct business as usual – regardless of the interests and opinions of its people.