Bruce Dowbiggin
That Old-Time Segregation. Good Enough Grandma. Good Enough For Me.
British universities are adding trigger warnings to Greek and Shakespearean tragedies to protect students from being triggered by tragedy.— The Telegraph
Those who remember the not-so-distant past will recall the epic struggle waged by the Left to end apartheid in South Africa. Focussed on the jailed leader Nelson Mandela, the movement gripped progressives in a righteous fervour to end the brutal segregationist regime of the white government.
Happily, the pressure exerted by governments around the world— including Canada’s— finally freed Mandela in 1990 and ended apartheid. The world celebrated. The Left took a victory lap with a Matt Damon movie about the integrated SA Rugby team winning the World Cup. Never more would the spectre of segregation blot the history of the Western democracies.
Not so fast. In this age of intellectual convenience the Left works fast. As we pointed out last week they have now convinced the former Allied nations that they actually lost WW II and the Cold War due to white supremacy and transphobia.
Here in Canada, under the guise of Critical Race Theory, they have resurrected apartheid nostalgia as a tool to achieve something-something-something. The federally funded National Arts Centre in Ottawa, a stone’s throw from the site of the Tuckers Convoy a year ago this month, was planning for two so-called Black-Out Nights where only blacks would be permitted into the plush pews for a little cultural uplift called “Is God Is”. Hints that “black-identifying” might get you in the door were quashed by staff who said it was “blacks only”.
The ban on whites, Asians and Indigenous theatre goers sprang from consultant research, no doubt at great cost, saying that the biggest barrier to theatre going is “it’s not for someone like me”. (Price of NAC tickets might also be a tiny impediment.) And so NAC management came up with Black Out Nights. “Honored that @CanadasNAC is standing by their commitment to a BLACK OUT performance of one of my favorite plays, ‘IS GOD IS,’” tweeted playwright Jeremy O’Harris who holds a masters degree from the slave ship known as Yale.
News of the NAC’s little secret spread outside the cognoscenti—despite the best efforts of the Media Party. Soon, the so-earnest-it’s-painful arts administrator who runs the NAC these days was skating backwards faster than Bobby Orr. Deciding it was not a BLM mountain to die on, Christopher Deacon declared that the NAC might have to “course-correct and refine” its virtue orgy. Too bad for a progressive organization that hired a Director of Equity and Inclusion, whose stunning advice was that the NAC should do more Equity and Inclusion.
Now, the entire event has been shelved, to the chagrin of the same publicly funded zealots who wanted Jordan Peterson banned from speaking in Ottawa. “Sometimes the most needed change encounters resistance,” quoth commissar Deacon. In finest apparatchik speak Deacon says they’ll persevere. “But we press on… it’s a journey to a better place”. In case you’re wondering Deacon is a white male liberal, but his black heart is in the right place. Which is good enough for the PMO.
(Sidebar: I worked as a PR flack at the NAC around the time of the first Quebec Referendum in 1980. Inclusion of francophones, not promotion of blacks, was the flavour of that Trudeau regime. So we had a dedicated well-paid employee whose job was to translate English into perfect Larousse French. Translating from French to English was my job, and anyone who’s heard my French will know how frightening a prospect that was for national unity. But no one cared.)
Lest one think this CRT outreach is limited to the NAC, look no further than Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille which— in my theatre days of the 70s-80s— was a plucky outfit long on class warfare and unwatchable plays. That continues into today where the star of a one-woman show on colonialism and such refused to let white theatre critics review her oeuvre ‘bug”.
Not to be outdone, Passe Muraille has its own Black Out Nights when even those willing to absorb the turgid agitprop onstage may not enter if they are un-black. Should someone wish to “self identify” as black they must undergo a gauntlet of staffers who will instruct them in the proper right-think. BTW: White staff, technicians and administrators will be allowed to participate and still cash Canada Council cheques.
Make no mistake. This virtue wallow is occurring across the performing arts in Canada, and the Canada Council is the love pump that supports the entire regime of inclusivity and inconsequentiality. Which is to say if you want money from this source— or win awards dedicated to the Arts in Canada— you must parse the accepted grievance du jour for material suitable to the panels who opine on such.
Sample: “Tragedy is a genre obsessed with violence and suffering, often of a sexual or graphic kind, and so some of the content might be triggering for some students.”— The University of Aberdeen. Then you can write The Acceptable Death of a Exploitation Salesman or Cat On A Solar-Powered Roof.
Naturally, the Black Out movement has its equivalent in academia. My alma mater, the University of Toronto, now brags about a black convocation to celebrate the ultimate safe space. The organizers say, “On top of the regular demands that come with earning a university degree, Black students often deal with the added stress of microaggressions and a lack of representation in the classroom.”
Nothing says Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King more than retreating from the world. The organizers of U of T’s Black Convocation announced, without irony, that the theme of (the 2021) event preferred by safe-space fans is “resilience.”
The percentage of Canadians who fervently believe the safe-space mantra— sticks and stones will hurt my bones but words will destroy civilization— can safely be contained on one of those leaky scows that ply the St. Lawrence filled with Venezuelan oil. But the impact of this furious, concentrated rabble of class warriors is profound compared to their numbers (blacks are 3.5 percent of Canada’s population.)
Why? Because fear. Fear is the secret to the current dystopia— not resilience, as U of T would have it. Those in positions of authority, like General George McLennan in the Civil War, always overestimate the opposition, quaking in their boots that they’ll be exposed by a tsunami that exists mostly in grievance sites and academic swamps. Then they go on CBC Metro Morning to publicly bend a knee to this pressure.
In fact the numbers are massively exaggerated by feckless media slappies who think one loud voice translates as a movement as real as the Trucker Convoy. And who flatter themselves as change makers. Until someone calls the bluff on this hustle you can expect much more of this New/ Old Time Segregation.
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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. 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
Play this drinking game. Every time some football analyst on TV says during the course of a game, “He’ll be a star for this team for years” take a drink. You’ll be tipsy in a hurry.
Maybe in the old days, Skip. But the concept of the players you’re loving now lasting very long with NFL, NHL, NBA or even MLB teams has come and gone. The new model was never more apparent as when the NFL No.1 seed Detroit Lions, replete with young stars, were blindsided from the NFL playoffs by upstart Washington’s rookie QB Jaden Daniels.
Heavily favoured Detroit (10 point favourites in some places) was loaded with superstars on their first contract. Jahmyr Gibbs, Jameson Williams, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Penei Sewell, Aidan Hutchinson (injured), Sam LaPorta, Jack Campbell and Ali McNeil (injured). Added to veteran QB Jared Goff and a sprinkling of veterans they seemed perfectly balanced.
Except the new mantra says you can only win a Super Bowl in this time of salary-cap hell with a HOF QB or a QB on his affordable rookie deal. Goff is neither, and to emphasize the mantra he threw four picks and fumbled once en route to the heartbreak loss. The dynasty turned into as ‘die-nasty”.
In the old days you’d just say “we will get them next year” and hope for better luck. But within two years the Lions will have to do a painful triage of their glittering young stars. You can’t pay them all, so who will go and who will stay? Adding to the misery of the salary-cap mandated chop will be can you get value for them in trades?
The Lions are far from the only ones dealing with leagues that value parity ahead of dynasty. In the NHL the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs are hearing the steady tick-tock counting down on the NHL’s cap machine. The two clubs lost consistently for a decade to score top picks in the draft. Riding the skills of Conor McDavid and Auston Matthews they’ve brushed up against a Stanley Cup but have yet to do the deal.
As every fan of the teams knows it’s a race to add the proper players to the roster to compliment the young stars before they get too expensive. McDavid is an unrestricted FA after 2025-26 and as the league’s top star he will command the maximum under the salary cap where ever he lands. If that’s Edmonton he and Leon Draisaitl will be added to Darnell Nurse, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent Hopkins as a large portion of the cap. Can the Oilers balance these stars and still pay defensemen and goalies?
Ditto the Maple Leafs who have Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly and Chris Tanev hogging the top end of the cap. Can they find the right pieces at a cheap price to create a team that will reach the Final, let alone win the Stanley Cup? And can they do it before their core players start to decline?
For those reasons, NHL teams and players were fixated on the news that there will be no more escrow deductions taken from players the rest of the season. That led many to surmise that the salary cap will be going up significantly for the next few years, allowing teams more latitude to complete rosters and elite players to be paid their worth to the league. Even if true the increases will be proportionate, forcing the same constraints of a cap at the top and bottom of payrolls.
None of these economic concerns seem to bother the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers. With just a luxury tax, not a salary cap, to restrain them the Dodgers have added Japanese star Riki Sasaki and bullpen ace Taylor Scott to their payroll in the past week. This in addition to two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell. Their payroll now exceeds $370 M. For 2025. By comparison the Pittsburgh Pirates sit at just $77 M for 2025 and the fans are outraged demanding the owner sell.
The Dodgers justify the spending because they are building a global brand. While the competing leagues constrict their payrolls to pay service to parity, MLB is allowing the Dodgers to take a soccer attitude to their payroll. The arguments for parity are pretty weak when you consider that their have-nots are happy to take the bounty of great TV/ digital/ logo revenue but refuse to improve their teams.
Which leaves us with the Toronto Blue Jays, definitely a large-market team trying to spend like one. Monday they announced the signing of FA Anthony Santander, who had 44 homers for Baltimore last season. This follows an offseason of humiliation where the team has made no progress signing its superstars Vladdy Guerrero and Bo Bichette.
Like NFL Lions or NHL Maple Leafs, the clock is ticking on their core players as they become prohibitively expensive. Should they sign both? One? Or trade them to get value before they scram to LA or New York? Right now they seem caught between bad options.
Meanwhile the underwhelming Jays management was punked— yet again—in pursuit of a high-profile Japanese FA. The very visible failure left many wondering if it was the market or the management that is holding back Toronto. Which might be another drinking game. Take a drink every time the Jays management swings and misses on a high-profile free agent. You’ll be in detox pretty 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. 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.
The recent appearance of Liberal-leader-in-waiting Mark Carney on the Daily Show has delighted a small segment of the Canadian voting pool and enraged a goodly part as well. During his nuzzle session with a highly uncritical Jon Stewart Carney announced that he was running to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and then prime minister for however long that lasts.
(If this distinction seems trivial we would recall that then-CBC vice president Kirstine Stewart once upbraided us for saying her actor husband was supporting Trudeau’s bid to be PM. A choleric Stewart said we’d got the story wrong. How so, we asked? He’s supporting him to be Liberal leader, she thundered. Not the PM. As if this were a distinction worth making.)
Back to Carney. To understand the gravity of his announcement on the Daily Show one must remember that for a generation of concussed Liberals and NDP hacks Stewart’s show from 1999 to 2016 was the Yankee Stadium of talk shows. In their estimation, Stewart was Reggie Jackson, mashing the fastball, while CBC’s At Issue panel was Jesus Ramirez, striking out on the curve in A Ball.
So for Stewart to grant time to an unknown Canadian banker who still thinks Greta Thunberg is relevant was intriguing. Or someone paid someone. In any event, the gotcha’ line from the chat was Carney, formerly governor of the Banks of Canada and the UK and now advisor to PMJT, repeating Stewart’s suggestion that he was the “outsider” in the race to succeed Trudeau.
For most sentient Canadians this was an epic humblebrag for the billionaire son of a former governor of the Bank of Canada whose wife does investment business with Trudeau eminence gris Gerry Butts. If Carney was an outsider what constituted an insider? It was to laugh.
Social media— that part not consumed by the visit of Alberta premier Danielle Smith and gadfly investor Kevin O’Leary to Mar A Lago— boiled with sarcasm and dismissal. Those wily Liberals aren’t going to fool us now, just as we are on the cusp of Pierre Poilievre taking power. No doubt Carney’s team— including PMJT— laughed in derision.
The Liberals culture club think that, if they could pass off Skippy as remotely capable, they can dress up Carney as an outsider for gullible Canadian voters.
But Carney may have accidentally have tripped over the truth. He is now an outsider. You see, the dotty Libs think the machine that selected/ elected Skippy in 2015 still works. CBC, G&M, Macleans, TorStar would decide the candidates and curate the process. Sadly for Butts, Telford and Skippy the Family Compact has been supplanted by social media both here and in the USA.
The turning point of Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential race was him pivoting away from the staged debates and ponderous Sunday morning shows of legacy media toward not just podcasts by Joe Rogan but also those of under-30 stars such as Theo Von, Adin Ross and Lex Fridman, among many. The cred he gained from the Gen X demo helped him sweep the Dems away. Elon Musk breaking the DEMs censorship strategy on Twitter (now X) also sent a shot at Team Kamala that the game had changed.
While Canada doesn’t have as many counter-culture podcasts as the U.S., there are enough young voters ignoring Canada’s chattering class to bury the Libs under Carney or the rest of the Goof Troop. No one with a pulse and a vote under 50 buys the old rag bag. It’s over for guys as exciting as a carrot expecting to harvest younger Canadians. They’re playing to an empty hall with the bespoke Carney.
This ironic twist is that all this is lost on Woke nobs who brag about their hip sense of humour. Who follow Stewart and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to keep up with Trump Derangement. Who record SNL Update to hang on the sophomoric stylings of Michael Ché and Colin Jost. Who can recite extended bits from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Now they are the punch line. The outrage over the Mar A Lago visit by Smith and O’Leary is a perfect example of their dissociative thinking. The staged pictures had “blood boiling” in many progressives. “@OrbitStudios Jan 13 So… Kevin O’Leary is arrested immediately for treason the next time he sets foot in Canada, correct? I’m absolutely being serious here.” And that’s a mild response.
These armies of Liberal bots fumed over the treachery of talking about the economy with the man about to become the U.S. president again. Awareness much? None of the howler monkeys reacted this way when heroes like PMJT and his cabinet burned clouds of carbon to lobby the eunuchs of WEF, EU and Davos in Europe. They were hot on selling out Canada to the globalist gang’s climate narrative, and they couldn’t get there quickly enough. Crickets from the bot community.
But this is different, of course. Sure. In the past their pals in the Ottawa Press Club could protect these hypocrisies, burying unfortunate stories by segueing to David Suzuki saving seals or Margaret Attwood decrying the medieval treatment of Canadian women in the 21st century.
But social media obliterated the insider game. So much so that Trudeau and his cabinet cronies began banning speech as fast as possible. But it’s too late. Like the ghost leg syndrome, the script to shove an unelected climate crazy into the PMO will seem real to the Libs. But don’t be fooled. The end is nigh for the old way. Just look at Stewart’s ratings to see just how dead it really is.
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.
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