Bruce Dowbiggin
Blood Simple. Climate Simple. Endless Deception
Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent.
Einstein, “If I were wrong, it wouldn’t take a dozen scientists to disprove me – one would be sufficient.”
Watching a commercial for new cars produces an ambivalent mix of nostalgia and rage. The conventional car industry seems to be selling much the same product in much the same manner as it always has. “Ooh, look at that sleek, well-washed car with the nice mpg.”
Nostalgia, because if geniuses like WEF’s Klaus Schwab and his acolytes Justin Trudeau and Pete Buttigieg have their way, gasoline-powered cars are about to go the way of the Studebaker. Quoth the U.S. Transportation secretary: “The more pain we are all experiencing from the high price of gas, the more benefit there is for those who can access electric vehicle,” Pete doesn’t get into the icky details of how the cars will be powered or where the energy goes from. Trust him.
Rage because who made Klaus Schwab king of the world? Don’t Trudeau and Buttigieg work for the citizens of sovereign nations? Apparently not, as Schwab has ordered his munchkins to end private ownership of cars. And so they shall. “A design process that focuses on fulfilling the underlying need instead of designing for product purchasing is fundamental to this transition,” the WEF announced. “This is the mindset needed to redesign cities to reduce private vehicles and other usages.” From his lips to Justin’s ears.
Klaus also wants to re-design the countryside by forcing nations to adopt organic farming. So he has Trudeau ordering Canada’s farmers to reduce fertilizer use by 30 percent— all to meet the fantastical Paris Accord commitments he’s made on behalf of Canadians to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2030. (If you want to see how this WEF brainwave is working, check out Sri Lanka, Ghana or Argentina.)
No one outside Trudeau’s pocket of private-jet pilgrims thinks tanking Canada’s agriculture and energy security is anything but an invitation to reliance on others. So it needs a little persuasion technique.
First they must create urgency. Luckily they have the arts-faculty dimwits of journalism to aid in the obfuscation. Asking today’s earnest scribblers to assess climate science is like asking an arsonist to consider a box of matches. For example, escalating storm damage becomes proof of catastrophe. “We should fully expect that over time the economic losses from disasters will grow as wealth grows,” writes Roger Piece Jr.. “So looking just at growing loss numbers may be good for political advocacy, but it doesn’t tell us much about how impacts are changing”
And so they regurgitate the Great Reset Doctrine: The Science is Settled.
Steven A. Koonin, Obama’s former Energy Department undersecretary for science, now director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at NYU, begs to differ. He describes a huge game of “telephone” where climate messages go in one end and, massaged by the committed, emerge in different form for the media at the other end of the line. “The discussion should not be about ‘denying’ or ‘believing’ the science,”he writes in his book Unsettled. “Climate change is real and affected by human activity. But we are very far from having the knowledge needed to make good policy.”
To the rage of the Doomsayers, Koonin elaborates on what Schwab, Prince Charles at al. gloss over. “Our best climate models still fail to explain the actual climate data… To the surprise of many, the country’s warmest temperatures have not increased since 1960 and are no higher in recent years than they were in 1900.… The net economic impact of human-induced climate change will be minimal through at least the end of this century.”
Scientist Richard A. Mueller, who says he’s a converted skeptic about climate change, nonetheless notes: “I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.”
Then there’s professor Roger Pielke Jr.: “Let’s face it, disasters have become deeply politicized as part of advocacy for climate action. Climate action is important, of course, but not so important that we should mislead people or misrepresent the current state of science. But here we are.”
Former U.S. budget director David Stockman spared no one in America. “What’s really in play here is the all-out commitment of the Biden Administration to destroy the fossil-fuel industry in the name of preventing a climate catastrophe that is pure fiction.”
And yet the Schwabians like Trudeau, who only lightly brushed up against higher education, are blind to any subtleties. They see only certainties in science’s variability when there is a legacy to create. One having everything to do with his preening and nothing to do with the welfare of Canada’s citizens.They must submit.
“Dan Allan: Canadians have to understand a basic fact. Canada is less than 0.5% of the global population. We pay a very high Carbon Tax to try to make a difference. Except it doesn’t matter. Because 98.5% of the world’s population does not pay a Carbon Tax. We are only punishing ourselves.”
Perhaps the only comfort in this messianic pursuit is how poorly Canadian governments have fared in backing up politicians’ caprices with results. Combined, Conservative and Liberal governments have set emission targets in 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2010, 2015, 2016 and 2021. They haven’t hit one yet. It’s looking likely they’ll keep their record of imperfection.
But that won’t stop them pushing for more ways to cripple the economy.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). 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. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft YearsIn NHL History, , his new book with his son Evan, was voted the eighth best professional hockey book of by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted seventh best, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
It’s fair to say everyone in hockey wanted the Winnipeg Jets back in the NHL. They became everyone’s darlings in 2011 when the Atlanta Thrashers, the league’s second stab at a franchise in Georgia, were sold to Canadian interests including businessman David Thomson. (Ed.: Gary Bettman’s try number three in Atlanta is upcoming.).
Yes, the market is tiny. Yes, the arena is too small. Yes, Thomson’s wealth is holding back a sea of inevitability. But sentimentalists remembering the Bobby Hull WHA Jets and the Dale Hawerchuk NHL Jets threw aside their skepticism to welcome back the Jets. The throwback uniforms with their hints at Canada’s air force past were an understated nod to their modest pretensions. It was a perfect story.
The question now, however, is will the same folks get dewey-eyed about the Jets if they become the first Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup since (checks his cards) Montreal and Patrick Roy did it in 1993. It would be helpful in this election year if something were to bind a nation torn apart by politics. The Gordie Howe Elbows Up analogy is more than shopworn, and Terry Fox can only be resurrected so often. So a Cup win might be a welcome salve.
But the approved script has long dictated that the Canadian team to break the schneid should be one of the glamour twins of the NHL’s Canadian content, the Edmonton Oilers or the (gulp) Toronto Maple Leafs. The Oilers and their superstar Connor McDavid barely lost out last spring to Florida while the Leafs, laden with superstars like Auston Matthews and William Nylander, are overdue for a long playoff run.
Hockey Night In Canada positively pants for the chance to gush over these two squads each week. When was the last time Toronto played an afternoon game so HNIC could showcase the Jets? Like, never. Same for the Oilers, who with their glittering stars like McDavid Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent Hopkins are the primary tenants of the doubleheader slot, followed by Calgary. Winnipeg? We’ll get to them.
But there’s going to be no ignoring them in the spring of 2025. The Jets in the northern outpost in Manitoba were the top team in the entire league in 2024-25. They’ll comfortably win the Presidents Cup as the No. 1 squad and have home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs. They have the league’s best goalie in Connor Hellebuyck (an American) and a stable of top scorers led by Kyle Connor and Mark Schiefele. Because Winnipeg is on a lot of No Trade lists, they have built themselves through the draft and thrifty budgeting.
But will the same people who swooned over the Jets in 2011 now find them as adorable if they ruin the Stanley Cup plot lines of the Oilers, Leafs and Ottawa Senators? Will the fans of Canadian teams in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal not making the postseason take the Jets to their hearts or will they be as phoney as the Mike Myers commercials for the Liberals?
In addition, the Jets will be swamped by national media should they proceed through the playoffs. It’s one thing to carry the expectations of Winnipeg and Manitoba. It’s another to foot the bill for a hockey crazy county. We remember Vancouver’s GM Mike Gillis during the Canucks 2011 Cup run bemoaning the late arrivers of the press trying to critique his team as they made their way through the playoffs.
It will be no picnic for the Jets, however strong they’ve been in the regular season. No one was gunning for them as they might for the Oilers or Leafs. They will now get their opponents’ best game night after night. Hellebuyck has been a top three goalie in the NHL for a while, winning the Vezina Trophy, but his playoff performance hasn’t matched that of his regular-season version.
Already the injury bug that sidelines so many Cup dreams is biting at the Jets. Nikolaj Ehlers collided with a linesman in Saturday’s OT win in Chicago. Defenceman Dylan Samberg is also questionable after stopping a McDavid slap shot with his leg. A rash of injuries has ended the run of many a worthy Cup aspirant in the past. Can Winnipeg’s depth sustain the churn of seven weeks of all-out hockey?
As always for the small-market Jets time is of the essence. Keeping this core together is difficult with large markets lusting after your players. With the NHL salary cap going up it remains a chore to keep their top players. Schiefele and Hellebuyck are tied up longterm, but 40-goal man Connor is a UFA after next season while Ehlers is not signed after this season. Young Cole Perfetti will be an RFA in 2026. Etc.
So how much do Canadians love the Jets if they sneak in and steal the hero role by winning a Canadian Cup? Lets see Ron MacLean pun his way through that one.
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. 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. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
Good news if you like the way Rogers Sportsnet covers hockey in Canada. You’re about to get a whole lot more of it. In a move that sums up Gary Bettman’s unique broadcast philosophy the NHL has awarded the Canadian TV/ digital/ streaming rights to Rogers for the next 12 years. The price tag? 12 billion U.S. dollars (about $16.B CDN dollars).
While the pattern in modern sports broadcasting rights has been toward sharing the wealth among competing bidders— the NFL has six distinct partners— Bettman the contrarian has opted for a different notion. He’s all in with one Canadian partner, and let his critics STFU.
As opposed to the previous CDN national monopoly awarded to Rogers in 2013 this one bestows national rights in all languages across TV, streaming and digital for all regular-season and playoff games, plus the Stanley Cup Final and all special events. This extends to coverage in all regions. There are some concessions for Rogers to sell limited cutout packages, such as the Monday Night Amazon package they’ve created.
Presuming Pierre Poliievre doesn’t get his way with CBC, Rogers will likely piggyback on their time-sharing agreement for Saturday Hockey Night In Canada to get CBC’s network reach. (There remain many hockey fans who still think CBC has the NHL contract. Go figure.)
Translation: there will be no regional packages for TSN to produce Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators or Toronto Maple Leafs games, for instance. But there will be regional blackouts, because nothing says we are proud of our product like denying it to a larger audience. Conn Smythe would be proud.
At the presser to announce the deal Rogers and Bettman were coy about how much they will charge consumers for the honour of being inundated by content in what now seems likely to be a 36-team league by the time the deal expires. Will costs be added to cable/ satellite packages? How much for streaming? With stories circulating that Rogers massively overbid for the package to get the monopoly it’s apparent that the phone company will be turning over every nickel to make it worthwhile.
Fans are apprehensive and over-saturated with hockey content already. For that reason, the NHL is now desperately looking for ways to lessen the tedium of the 82-game regular schedule with midseason content like the 4 Nations Cup or a World Cup format. In Canada’s hockey-mad environment Rogers will have a passionate market, but even the most fervent fans will only spend so much for their fix.
Already, Rogers is trumpeting its re-acquisition with commercials featuring Ron Maclean doing his breathy feels-like-home voice about how Sportsnet is the natural landing spot for hockey until many of us are dead. Bettman made cooing noises about Rogers’ commitment at the announcement.
But let us cast our minds back to 2013 when the last Rogers/ NHL deal was concocted. We were the sports media columnist at the Mop & Pail at the time and much was made that Rogers would be a technological marvel, re-inventing the way we watched hockey. There would be new camera angles, referee cams, heightened audio, refreshed editorial content etc.
As hockey fans now know Rogers dabbled in the brave new world briefly, blanched at the cost of being creative and largely went back to doing hockey the way it had always been done. Taking no risks. On some regional casts that meant as few as three or four cameras for the action.
But if you were expecting dashboard cameras and drone shots you were sadly disappointed. Similarly there was a brief stab at refreshing the pre-, mid- and postgame content. Hipster George Stromboulopoulos was brought in as a host to attract a larger female audience.
But pretty soon Strombo was gonzo, replaced by the anodyne David Amber (whose dad was once the leader of the journalist union at CBC). Women like former player Jennifer Botterill were brought in to change the gender balance on panels. They then acted pretty much like guys, chalk-talking viewers into numbness. Appointment viewing has become a fallback choice.
The move away for anything controversial came in 2019 with Rogers’ axing of Don Cherry’s Coach’s Corner in a flap over the former coach’s continuing ventures into political or cultural content. Maclean slipped the knife into his meal ticket and continued on the show. After time in limbo, doing location shoots, he was returned full-time to the desk.
As we wrote in June of 2022, the one exception to the standard “serious, sombre, even a touch grim” tone is former defenceman Kevin Bieksa. “Bieksa has been a moveable feast. His insouciance with media has become his ragging on the fellow panelists during intermissions that used to be as much fun as skating in July.” His banter with “insider” Elliotte Friedman is now a lone concession to wit on the show.
Intermissions are numbingly predictable, and Rogers’ stable of analysts and play-by-play announcers outside of HNIC is unchallenging to the orthodoxy of PxP being a radio call over TV pictures. Name one star beside Bieksa that has been produced by Rogers’ “safe” broadcast style since 2013. They’d fit in perfectly in a 1980s hockey broadcast. Now compare it with the lively Amazon broadcasts hosted by Adnan Virk and Andi Petrillo.
This leaves a lingering question. What happens to TSN? Many prefer the editorial and studio profile of TSN on Trade Deadline Day or Free Agent frenzy. TSN locked up its stars such as James Duthie and Bob McKenzie when the last deal was signed. But there isn’t enough live content this time to support keeping a full roster anymore. Who will stay and who will go? (TSN’s president Stewart Johnson is the new commissioner of the CFL).
And with Rogers taking full control of MLSE (Maple Leafs, Raptors, Argos, Toronto FC) TSN is left with the CFL and packages of NFL, golf, tennis, some auto racing and international soccer. Is that enough on which to float a network? There have been rumours that Bell, owner of TSN, is interested in divesting itself of the high cost of sports broadcasting. Should that happen— who has the money to replace them?— the effect will be seismic in Canadian broadcasting.
For now, watch how much pressure the NHL puts on Rogers to up its game. More importantly what will happen when Bettman finally retires and the league has a new vision since 1992? Rogers has sewn up its end. Will the audience go with them?
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, 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.
Conservative Party urges investigation into Carney plan to spend $1 billion on heat pumps
Mark Carney To Ban Free Speech if Elected
Expert Medical Record Reviews Of The Two Girls In Texas Who Purportedly Died of Measles
Communist China helped boost Mark Carney’s image on social media, election watchdog reports
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoRCMP Whistleblowers Accuse Members of Mark Carney’s Inner Circle of Security Breaches and Surveillance
-
Also Interesting2 days agoBetFury Review: Is It the Best Crypto Casino?
-
Autism2 days agoRFK Jr. Exposes a Chilling New Autism Reality
-
COVID-191 day agoCanadian student denied religious exemption for COVID jab takes tech school to court
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoBureau Exclusive: Chinese Election Interference Network Tied to Senate Breach Investigation
-
International1 day agoUK Supreme Court rules ‘woman’ means biological female
-
2025 Federal Election1 day agoNeil Young + Carney / Freedom Bros
-
Health1 day agoWHO member states agree on draft of ‘pandemic treaty’ that could be adopted in May