Bruce Dowbiggin
Eau Canada! The Anthem As Woke Opera

One of the highlights of the recent Super Bowl was a heartfelt, unembellished rendering of The Star Spangled Banner by country star Chris Stapleton. So gripping was his unaccompanied version of the song heard a million times that tears flowed freely from the eyes of Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. The huge crowd was stilledā and no one on either team took a knee.
There is debate about whether the SSB should be the U.S. national anthem. The NFL fed the revisionist spirit with Babyface doing a soulful America The Beautiful and Sheryl Lee Ralph performing the putative black anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing. What can be said is that none of the artists took liberties with the lyrics of the three songs. And all were done with sincerity.
Then there is Canadaās national anthem. At the recent NBA All Star Game Canadian chanteuse Jully Black became the latest singer to attempt a manicure to the English lyrics of O Canada, penned for the 1880 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony (Calixa LavallĆ©e composed the music, after which words were written by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The English lyrics have āevolvedā over the years.)
Black amended the first line from āour home and native landā to our home ON native landā. Because something-something. But this creative license is nothing new. Unlike Chris Stapleton, Marvin Gaye or Whitney Houston with the SSB, interpreters of O Canada have seen fit to amend the lyrics to their sensibilities. Roger Doucet, famed anthem singer of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970-80s, tried to add the words āwe stand on guard for truth and libertyā in place of the first āwe stand on guard for theeā.
In 1990, having nothing better to do, Toronto City Council voted 12 to 7 in favour of recommending that the phrase “our home and native land” be changed to “our home and cherished land” and that “in all thy sons command” be partly reverted to “in all of us commandā.
While those attempts had mixed outcomes it appears itās just a matter of time till Ms. Blackās class-conscious culling of the words is accepted. Being generous we here at IDLM thought weād short-circuit piecemeal attempts to create a throughly Woke version of the anthem that would last till the latest fad come along. Herewith our definitive O Canada that evenā maybe onlyā Justin Trudeau could love:
āO Canadaā (Ignores the French fact in our culture) Change to āEau Canadaā
āOur home on native landā (ignores indigenous land claims) Change to āGet off our land, settlersā
āTrue patriot love in all of us commandsā (Only true patriot love? There are now officially 78 kinds of relationships in Trudeaupia. And commanding love?) Change to āLove the one youāre withā.
āWith glowing hearts we see thee riseā (rise suggests triumph of white triumphalist dogma) Change to āNon judgementally we oppose the crushing impacts of Euro-based autocracyā
āThe true north strong and freeā (How can anyone be strong or free when we support Americaās killing fields?) Change to āHeteronormative thinking must be stamped out at our borders. If we even have borders anymore.ā
āFrom far and wideā (Body shaming) Change to āObesity is a disease that is not helped by putting it in the national anthem.ā
āO Canadaā (biased against A, B, AB blood types) change to āScience Must Be Believedā
āWe stand on guard for theeā (Spreads hate against the non ableist community) Change to āPlease remain seated.ā
āGod keep our landā (God? God? What is this, the Reformation) āChange to āItās your thingā
āGlorious and freeā (Glorious harkens to the bourgeois subjugation of Indigenous thought processes by white Christian priests) Change to āA genocidal state if there ever was oneā.
āO Canada we stand on guard for thee/Ā
O Canada we stand on guard for theeāĀ The denial of trans rights is used twice here to emphasize the intolerable burdens faced by people of the LGBTQ2R community as they seek respect and compensation for the evils of the founding oppressors.) Change to āEau Canada, after 6.5 hours of intensive lectures on the gender, race and dissociative application of class war on your citizens you may someday come to understand that this song is a manifestation of your bigotry and exploitation of minoritiesā and why rhyming lines like āthee and freeā is the work of the devil or J.K. Rowling, whomever comes to mind first.ā
There. That wasnāt so tough, was it? Flows trippingly off the tongue like Trudeau refusing a special inquiry into China buying the electoral process. Or perhaps we should simply accept a literal translation of the original French lyrics:
O Canada!
Land of our ancestors
Glorious deeds circle your brow
For your arm knows how to wield the sword
Your arm knows how to carry the cross;
Your history is an epic
Of brilliant deeds
And your valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights.
Or maybe we shouldĀ just get Chris Stapleton to sing O Canada the way it was written.Ā And leave it at that.
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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public BroadcasterĀ A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, heās a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new 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 http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Bruce Dowbiggin
From Heel To Hero: George Foreman’s Uniquely American Story

“The more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know.āā George Foreman
For those who thought Donald Trumpās role progression (in WWE terms) from face to heel to face again was remarkable, George Foreman had already written the media book on going from the Baddest Man in the World to Gentle Giant.
Itās hard for those who saw him as the genial Grill Master or the smiling man withĀ seven sons all named George (he also had seven daughters, each named differently) to conjure up the Foreman of the 1970s. He emerged as a star at the 1968 Olympics, winning the gold medal in heavyweight boxing. His destruction of a veteran Soviet fighter made him a political hero. In an age that already boasted a remarkable heavyweights Foreman was something unique.
Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Ron Lyle and Jimmy Ellis were still bankable household names for boxing fansā but on the downside of famous careers. They each had their niche. Foreman was something altogether different. Violent and pitiless in the ring. Unsmiling as he dismantled the boxers he met on his way to the top. He was the ultimate black hat.
With the inimitable Howard Cosell as his background track , he entered the ringĀ in 1973 against the favoured ex-champ Frazier, coming off his three epic fights with Ali. While everyone gave Foreman a chance it was thought that the indomitable Frazier, possessor of a lethal left hook, would tame the young bull.

Instead, in under two rounds of savagery , Foreman sent Frazier to the canvasĀ six times. Cosell yelled himself horse crying, āDown goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!ā This was a whole new level of brutality as the poker-faced Foreman returned to his corner as the most feared boxer on the planet. For good measure Foreman destroyed Norton in 1974.
Fans of Ali quaked when they heard that he would face Foremanās awesome power in Africa in the summer of 1974. They knew how much the trio of Frazier brawls had taken from him. The prospect of seeing the beloved heavyweight champ lifted off his feet by Foremanās power left them sick to their stomach. Foreman played up his bad-boy image, wearing black leather, snarling at the press and leading a German shepherd on a leash.
Everyone knows what happened next. We were travelling the time in the era before internet/ cell phones. Anticipating the worst we blinked hard at the headline showing the next day that it was a thoroughly exhausted Foreman who crumbled in the seventh round. The brilliant documentary When We Were Kings is the historical record of that night/ morning in Kinshasa. The cultural clash of Ali, the worldās most famous man, and the brute against the background of music and third-world politics made it an Oscar winner.
But itās largely about Ali. It doesnāt do justice to the enormity of Foremanās collapse. Of course the humiliation of that night sent Foreman on a spiritual quest to find himself, a quest that took the prime of his career from him. It wasnāt till 1987 that he re-emerged as a Baptist minister/ boxer. With peace in his soul he climbed the ranks again, defiantly trading blows in the centre of the ring with opponents who finally succumbed to his āold-manā power.
Instead of the dour character who was felled by Ali, this Foreman was transformed in the publicās eye when he captured the heavyweight title in 1994, beating Michael Moore, a man 20 years his junior. He smiled. He teased Cosell and other media types. He fought till he was 48, although he tried to comeback when he was 55 (his wife intervened)

And, yes, for anyone who stayed up late watching TV there was the George Foreman Grill, a pitchmanās delight that earned him more money than his boxing career. HBO boxing commentator Larry Merchant commented that “There was a transformation from a young, hard character who felt a heavyweight champion should carry himself with menace to a very affectionate personality.ā
There was a short-lived TV show called George. There was The Masked Singer as “Venus Fly Trapā. And there were the cameos on Home Improvement, King Of The Hill andĀ Fast āN Loud, delighting audiences whoād once reviled him. He cracked up Johnny Carson.
Foremanās rebound story was uniquely American. Where Canadians are enthusiastically damning Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky for political reasons, Foreman never became a captive of angry radicals or corporate America. He went his own way, thumping the bible and the grill. Rest easy, big man.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public BroadcasterĀ 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.
2025 Federal Election
Chinese Gangs Dominate Canada: Why Will Voters Give Liberals Another Term?

Thereās an old joke that goes, the Japanese want to buy Vancouver but the Chinese arenāt selling. Glib, yes. But with enough truthā Chinese own an estimated 30 percent of Vancouverās real estate marketā to pack a punch; Especially in this truncated rush to anoint Mark Carney PM before anyone finds out exactly whoās his Mama.
The advertised narrative for this election is Donald Trumpās vote of no confidence in the modern Canadian state. A segment of Canadiansā mostly Boomersā see this as intolerable foreign interference in the countryās sovereignty. So rather than look inward at why Canadaās closest partner is fed up with them the Liberal government has chosen a pep rally rathe than any uncomfortable questions.
Namely about Chinese interference in Canadaās politics, the distortion of real-estate prices in Canadian urban markets, the exploitation of banking and the thriving drug trade that underpins it all. And how itās driving a wedge between generations in the nation. As we like to say, Canadaās contented elites have been sitting in first class for decades but only paying economy.
Theyād like you to forget insinuations that Canada is a global money-laundering capital. Better to blame Trump for the āwillful blindnessā that has Americans and others losing trust in Canada to keep secrets and contribute its fair share tom protecting against the growth of China. (The same geopolitical concern that saw Trump kick the Chinese out of the Panama Canal Zone.)
Thanks to the diligent reporting of journalist Sam Cooper and others we know better. And itās ugly. An estimated trillion dollars from Chinese organized crime has washed through Canada since the 1990s. Theyāve used underground banks and illegal currency smuggling to circumvent the law. Theyāve bribed and intimidated. And theyāve poisoned elections.
This penetration of the culture/ economy by well-organized Asian criminal gangs have been around since the 1990s, but under Trudeau they hit warp speed. By the time Trump inconveniently raised the issue of border security in January, Canadaās economy could fairly be characterized as a real-estate bubble with a drug-money-laundering chaser.Ā The Chinese Communist Party now operates āpolice stationsā in many Canadian cities to supervise this activity and report to Beijing.

In his 2021 book Willful Blindness (and subsequent reporting) Cooper patiently records this evolution with brazen Asian gangs using casinos in BC and Ontario as money-laundering outlets to wash drug money and other criminal proceeds, turning stacks of dirty twenty-dollar bills into clean hundred-dollar bills or casino chips.Ā (When Covid closed the casinos they used luxury mansions as private casinos.)
All financed by underground banks and loansharks. This process became known internationally as The āVancouver Modelā to help establish Chinese proxies overseas and extend the CPP ās reach. Hey, the real estate kingpin is named Kash-Ing. (Kaching!) Itās currently being used to buy farm properties in PEI, much to the anger of residents (who will still vote Liberal to protect their perks.)
While investigators and some authorities attempted to expose the schemes the perps were protected by compromised government officials, corrupt casino employees and the inability of courts to deliver justice. Itās why Canadians were so shocked that TD Bank was fined $3B in the U.S. for allowing money laundering. āNot us! No way! Weāre Simon pureā.
Much of this money ended up in Canadaās feverish real-estate market, with vacant properties creating insane price spirals across the nation. Itās driven the inability of under 40s to buy homesā another major crisis the Liberals are trying to disguise under Mark Carney the compliant banker. Still more of the proceeds were used to build stronger drug-supply chains between Asia, Mexico and Canadaā with heroin and fentanyl then distributed to the U.S. and in Canada.

Against this explosion of housing and drug debt were stories of the political influence of these gangs into the Canadian system. The sitting Canadian prime minister, who praised the Chinese form of governing before he reached the PM post, has been seen in photos with underground Asian gang figures. As were previous Liberal leaders like Jean Chretien who made no secret of his lust for the Chinese market. Chinese money was used to build extensively in Chretienās Shawinigan riding.
Donations to Trudeauās Montreal riding association and to the Trudeau Foundation were favourites of shadowy Chinese figures. āIn just two days (in 2016), the prime ministerās (Outremont) riding received $70,000 from donors of Chinese origin, and at the same time, the government authorized the establishment of a Chinese bank in Canada,ā Bloc leader Yves-Francois Blanchet said on Feb. 28.
Donations to Trudeau from all across Canada constituted up to 80 percent of the ridingās contributions that year. In May 2016, one such fundraiser saw Trudeau hosted by Benson Wong, chair of the Chinese Business Chamber of Commerce, along with 32 other wealthy guests in a pay-for-access event. The patterns exposed by Cooper finally prompted a commission by Quebec justice Marie-JosĆ©e Hogue looking into Chines interference in Trudeauās successful 2019 and 2021 elections.

An interim report released last year by Hogue determined that while foreign interference might not have changed the outcome of Canadaās 2019 and 2021 federal elections, it did undermine the rights of Canadian voters because it ātainted the processā and eroded public trust.Ā So petrified was Trudeau of the full Hogue Report that he prorogued parliament for three months and handed in his resignation rather than test his 22 percent approval rating in a Canadian election. Or his luck with the courts.
Luckily for Liberals Trump came along to smoke out Trudeau and allow for the current whitewash of the partyās record since 2015 under Carney. So instead of agreeing with Washington about Canadaās corrupted economy Canadians have decided to engage in a Mike Myers nostalgia fest for a nation long gone. A nation overly dominated by its smug, satisfied +60 demographic that sits back on its savings while younger Canadians cannot get into the economy.
Reaching past the sunset media to those people is Pierre Poilievreās task. He has a month to do so. For Canadaās long-term prospects heād better succeed. The Chinese are watching closely.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public BroadcasterĀ 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.
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