Connect with us

Bruce Dowbiggin

Bye-Bye Election: Turn Out The Lights, The Party’s Over

Published

8 minute read

@Sheila_Copps

Not sure which election you are watching. The Liberals are winning in double digits. Not bad for a party this is supposed to be 20 points behind on the national polls. https://x.com/Sheila_Copps/status/1805439460110135640

One of the truly wonderful things about X is its ability to capture the privileged in full regalia, exercising their entitlement in real time. For this purpose no one struts quite like Sheila Copps, the Madame Lafarge of the Liberals’ Sponsorship Scandal, the disaster that reduced her party to such a low estate that only pusillanimous Justin Trudeau could be their saviour.

Ms. Copps was tossing around cringeworthy headlines Monday night/ Tuesday morning concerning the by-election in Toronto St. Paul’s riding. Reading them (“If Coppsy says it’s over, it’s over”) we went to bed thinking her insider PMO candidate Leslie Church had eked out a small but necessary plurality.

Only to wake up to the former deputy PM wiping free-range egg from her face as the Conservatives stole this bedrock riding. And while Ms. Copps tried to play the Libs as a plucky underdog, the party HQ threw everything and everyone into the riding to rescue them from Justin Trudeau hate. It wasn’t enough. In fact, their desperation worked against them.  Door-front canvassing was hazardous as the Forest Hill set, apprised of new capital-gains taxes, told cabinet ministers and other party hacks they’d rather boil in a Tim’s Dark Roast than support Sinbad the Black Face PM anymore.

While Copps spluttered about how fate was against Liberals, she couldn’t blame low turnout. A 45 percent turnout for a by-election in central Toronto, where a drive to the corner store can take 30 minutes in YYZ gridlock, is decisive. Which leaves the Liberal Party as currently constituted under Genocide Man in a bad place. Or, more accurately, no place.

The paid scribes at CBC tried to soften the blow. “The Liberals’ poor showing in a stronghold like this could prompt some soul-searching for Trudeau..” Could prompt? Some soul searching? That’s like saying Napoleon is having second thoughts about invading Russia. The CBC writers acted like he’d gotten a speeding ticket, not a ticket to political oblivion. Or to the WEF, his true constituency.

As many have noted, the only one thinking that Trudeau should stay is Trudeau himself. His teenaged angst thing doesn’t allow for contradiction. Except it’s not his call anymore after St. Pauls. If the hollowed-out Libs can find anyone willing to do the Kim Campbell Caretaker To Disaster role, they should change the locks on the PMO now.

Bespoke banker to the privileged Mark Carney is the name they mention, because he combines Liberal arrogance with taste for the Green Apocalypse. But current backbench MPs trying to stretch the writ till their pensions are assured and those who want Senate jobs after the collapse aren’t likely to pop their heads up with any risky ideas.

The Freeland-led Cabinet, which currently resembles the faculty lounge at a third-rate community college, is widely despised and as unelectable as a rabbi in Gaza. Sad. It all seems just days ago when the Laurentian elite in St. Paul’s was soaking up Sunny Ways policies like Diversity Is Strength as if handed down from the Oracle.

In the overlap from Stephen Harper, when all things could be blamed on The Prince of PMO Darkness, the niggling lapses like Justy as Calypso King or firing his indigenous female Minister of Justice could be blithely dismissed. The RCMP were diverted. When Blame the Harp was gone, he morphed into Justin the Terrible, a full-blooded caudillo arresting truckers and shutting down society for vaccines. He was now a titan of moral authority hiding under his desk from working people.

His vaunted immigration project (“Do I hear 40 million?”) dovetailed nicely with his distaste for traditional Canadians like truckers and farmers who live without private jets. When multi-generational Canadians protested about the housing bubble this created he staged a cemetery photo op to tell the world that his constituency is genocidal. The hubris was epic.

But in time it all caught up to him. His Prince of Araby mask was ripped off, and the facts of his turpitude finally became undeniable. His ultimate failing was probably the Diversity Dance, which postulated that he could import millions into the nation, allow them free rein on religion and culture, and house them in tiny houses. The bar was low, but the pomposity was high.

This Skippy scam was based the great liberal pathetic fallacy. By extending reason and understanding to people who want neither you will bring them around to your thinking. And voting for you. You need gullibility to believe this stuff. Luckily for Trudeau he had the purchased media to make this sound like a good idea.

But all good things must end. People who worshipped Diversity eventually realized it separated people and fractured Canadian society. Instead of uniting Canadians behind shared goals it perpetuated grievances, creating a victimization pecking order, each complaint more pathetic than the last. It caught up to him in St. Paul’s.

One other satisfying element from St. Paul’s was the inability of Trudeau’s common-law political partner Jagmeet Singh to exploit the antipathy to Trudeau. The NDP live in permanent hope that a Liberal crater represents their chance to seize the political middle. But Singh’s Uriah Heap performance in propping up Trudeau’s ethics breaches and suspected illegalities isn’t fooling anyone. Least of all the fashionista lefties of Forest Hill or Yonge & Eglinton.

If the humiliation from St. Paul’s riding was poison for Trudeau and the Libs then it was worse for Singh and the Deepers. A new day is coming. Unlike climate change it will get here soon.

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.

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

2025 Federal Election

Will Four More Years Of Liberals Prove The West’s Tipping Point?

Published on

The 1997 political comedy Wag The Dog featured a ruling president far behind in the polls engaging Hollywood to rescue his failing ratings. By inventing a fake war against Albania and a left-behind “hero”— nicknamed Shoe— the Hollywood producer creates a narrative that sweeps the nation.

The meme of hanging old shoes from the branches of trees and power lines catches on and re-elects the president. In a plot kicker, the vain producer is killed by the president’s handlers when he refuses to stay quiet about his handiwork. The movie’s cynicism over political spin made it a big hit in the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky days.

In the recent 2024 election the Democrats thought they’d resurrect the WTD formula to spin off senile Joe Biden at the last minute in favour of Kamala Harris. Americans saw through the obvious charade and installed Donald Trump instead.

You’d think that would be enough to dissuade Canadians who pride themselves on their hip, postmodern humour. But you’d be wrong, they don’t get the joke. Wag The Carney is the current political theatre as Liberals bury the reviled Justin Trudeau and pivot to Mark Carney. If you believe the polling it might just be working on a public besotted by ex-pat Mike Myers and “Canada’s Not For Sale”.

As opposed to Wag The Dog, few are laughing about this performative theatre, however. There are still two debates (English/ French)  and over three more weeks of campaign where anything— hello Paul Chiang—can happen. But with Laurentian media bribed by the Libs— Carney is threatening those who stray— people are already projecting what another four years of Liberals in office will mean.

As the most prominent outlier to Team Canada’s “we will fight them on the beaches…” Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith is already steering a course for her province that doesn’t include going to war with America on energy. She asked Trump to delay his tariffs until Canadians had a chance to speak on the subject in an election April 28. Naturally the howler monkeys of the Left accused her of treason. She got her wish Wednesday when Canada was spared any new tariffs for the time being.

Clearly, she (and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe) have no illusions about Carney not using their energy industry as a whipping post for his EU climate schemes. They’ve seen the cynical flip in polls as former Trudeau loyalists hurry back to the same Liberal party they abandoned in 2024. They know Carney can manipulate the Boomer demographic just as he did when he called for draconian financial methods against the peaceful Truckers Convoy in 2022.

Former Reform leader Preston Manning is unequivocal: “’Large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it.’“ So how does the West respond within Confederation to protect itself from a predatory Ottawa elite?

Clearly, the emissions cap— part of Carney’s radical environmental plans— will keep Alberta’s treasure in the ground. With Carney repeating no cancellation of Bill C-69 that precludes building pipelines in the future, the momentum for a referendum in Alberta will only grow. The NDP will howl, but there will be enough push among from the rest of Albertans for a new approach within Canada.

In this vein Smith even wants to approach Quebec. While it seems like odd bedfellows the two provinces most at odds with the status quo have much in common .  “This is an area where our two provinces may be able to coordinate an approach,” Smith wrote this week. That could include referendums by the middle of 2026.

Perhaps the best recipe for keeping the increasingly fractious union together is a devolution of power, not unlike that governing the United Kingdom. While Westminster remains the central power since 1997, there are now separate parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that put power closer to the citizen, so that local factors are better recognized in decision making.

With so little uniting the regions of the country any longer, devolution might provide a solution. What form could decentralization take within Canada? A Western Canada Parliament could blunt predatory federal energy policies while countering the imbalances of Canada’s equalization process. Similar parliaments representing Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Ontario and B.C. would protect their own special interests within Canada. Ottawa could handle Canada’s international obligations to defence, trade and international cooperation.

While the idea is fraught with pitfalls it nonetheless remains preferable to a breakup of the nation, which four more years of Liberals rule under Mark Carney and the same Trudeau characters will likely precipitate. Smith’s outreach case would be the beginning of such a process.

None of this would be necessary were the populations of Eastern Canada and B.C.’s lower mainland remotely serious after snoozing through the Trudeau decade. The OECD shows Canada’s 1.4% GDP barely ahead of Luxembourg and behind the rest of the industrialized world from 2015-2025. As we’ve said before the Boomers sitting on their $1 million-plus homes are re-staging Woodstock on the Canada Pension and OAS. As with Wag The Dog, they’re not getting the joke.

When the Boomers award themselves another four years of taxapalooza and Mike Myers and the other “Canada Not For For Sale” celebs head south to their tax-avoidance schemes how will the Boomers say they’ve left Canada  better off for anyone under 60? We’ll hang up and listen to your answer on the TV.

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.

Continue Reading

Bruce Dowbiggin

Are the Jays Signing Or Declining? Only Vladdy & Bo Know For Sure

Published on

We were watching the Los Angeles Dodgers home opener on Thursday. The defending World Series champs came from behind to beat Detroit 5-4. The big hit was a three-run homer from a player named Teoscar Hernandez off AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal

If that name sounds familiar, Teoscar was a Toronto Blue Jay from 2018-2022. He pounded 121 homers in the span as part of the Jays’ order. But when Toronto decided it needed bullpen help he was traded to Seattle in 2022 for pitchers Erik Swanson and Adam Macko. While Swanson has battled injuries and Macko is no-go, Hernandez keeps pounding the ball.

In his one year in Seattle he had strikeout problems but did hit 26 homers with 93 RBIs. In the winter of 2023-24 he signed as a free agent with the aforementioned Dodgers. Batting behind Shohei Ohtani he launched 33 homers and 99 RBIs. He won the All Star Home Run Derby. His key hit in Game 5 of the World Series propelled L.A. to the title. The stacked Dodgers liked him enough to give him a three-year, $66 million contract.

Why are we telling you this? Because the Blue Jays also started their 2025 season at home, matched against the Baltimore Orioles. And while there are reasons to believe the Jays will not replicate their 74-win disaster of 2024, there remain the old bugaboos of injuries and pitching. In the four games against the division rivals they need to beat, Jays’ pitching gave up 24 runs while scoring 18—nine of them in one game.

The splashy acquisition of 40 year old HOF pitcher Max Scherzer has already gone sideways as a bad thumb has put him on the IL. The new stopper, Jeff Hoffman, was rejected on medical grounds by two other teams before Toronto’s money made him healthy. The rest of the bullpen— a disaster in 2024— got off to a rocky start with Orioles hitters playing BP against them. They’ve already DFA’d one pitcher and called up two more from the minors. The re-made pen performed well in Game 4, but how it holds up in their next 158 games is a mystery.

On offence, while their rivals in Boston and New York added sexy pieces to their rosters the Jays were only able to acquire veteran switch-hitting Baltimore slugger Anthony Santander. More typical of their other signees is ex-Cleveland 2B infielder Andres Giminez who in 2023 had the lowest average exit velocity of all AL batters (84.8 mph), and led the AL in percentage of balls that were softly hit (21.7%). He does play a slick second base.

The winter story line for the Jays offence was what to do about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, the erstwhile star-dust twins who were— along with Cavan Biggio— supposed to guarantee titles when they emerged in 2019. Biggio is gone, so the other two carry the credibility of the management team of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins. From the outside the Jays seem paralyzed to act.

While the Jays dithered, the price for players like Guerrero and Bichette soared. Using Juan Soto’s Mets $765 M deal as a yardstick Guerrero turned down a Jays offer of just under $600 M, saying he was done talking during the season. If Shapiro/ Atkins had anticipated the market Guerrero would have cost a lot less in 2023-24. If there is no progress by the trading deadline the Jays will be forced to get what they can in a trade.

Shortstop Bichette— a gifted player who battled injuries in 2024—is likewise up for a new deal. He has started strong in 2025 and would command a handsome return in a trade. He says the Jays are waiting to see what happens with Guerrero first.  Having sold the pair for years to their loyal fans, having to trade them will be a massive PR blow. And while Jays’ national audience can be an advantage, having a whole country pissed with you is devastating.

The rest of the secret sauce for a Toronto comeback revolves around one of their hitting prospects taking a step forward. Any/ all of Will Wagner, Alan Roden, Addison Barger or Leo Jimenez can have a job if they show their bats are for real. Otherwise Shapiro and Atkins will hope that Dalton Varsho, George Springer and Alejandro Kirk can find a little magic in their aging bats.

A failure to retain talent may prompt fans to recall that Rogers decided that Shapiro and Atkins, who dumped Teoscar, were worthy replacements for the previous GM who’d walked away. The man Schneider and Atkins were hired to improve upon— Canadian Alex Anthopoulos— has made the Atlanta Braves a dominant team. Since AA moved to Atlanta they’ve won 90, 97, 38 (Covid year), 88, 101, 104, 109, 89 games. They’ve won a World Series and two other playoff series. They won six straight NL East titles before injuries sank them last year.

The Braves have developed young everyday superstars like Ronald Acuńa Jr. who don’t get picked off second base. They have built a pitching staff largely from within, not splashy FA signings. They have swagger without cockiness. They are set for years to come.

The Blue Jays? Since AA left they’ve won 73, 67, 32 (Covid), 91, 92, 89, 74 games. They’ve won zero postseason games while missing the playoffs in four seasons. The players they traded are starring for other teams in the postseason. They are again employing an inexperienced company guy as manager.

While it’s true that the sun can’t shine on the same team every day, Jays fans believe it would be nice if the great orb would find their club as it did back in the 1992/93 World Series days. Instead of the reflected glory of past stars winning for other teams. Patience is thin. And time is ticking.

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.

Continue Reading

Trending

X