Bruce Dowbiggin
Trudeau’s Trucking Awful Week In Hiding
“You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you/ All those pretty lies, pretty lies/ When you gonna realize they’re only pretty lies? — Joni Mitchell
Anyone born after the turn of the century was likely unsurprised by the news that Joni Mitchell and Neil Young (“who ‘dey?”) want Spotify to ban podcaster Joe Rogan for sins against the climate catechism. Cancel culture IS the culture to many brought up in the safe spaces of the 21st century.
But for those who grew up with Young singing “Rockin’ In The Free World” while Mitchell sang the virtues of a “Free Man In Paris” the concept of these iconic artists arguing for censorship is bracing. What happened to artistic freedom from the Laurel Canyon crowd?
Well, the Canadian (surprised?) pair are simply responding to the safe-space zeitgeist. For Neil— who fell into Darryl Hannah’s lunatic orbit— that means eliminating anyone with a differing view on the Climate Cult. As for Joni, she wrote her own epitaph. “All romantics meet the same fate someday/ Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café.” The Safe Space Café.
Safe-space reality was spawned in the education system. Radicals used the schools to enforce their Woke dogma, shutting down opposing opinion under the guise of providing the indulged a place where they could escape the noise of debate or just have a good cry . In a room with only one voice singing you can quickly come to believe that everyone agrees with you.
Which brings us to Canada’s petrified PM, Justin Trudeau bunkered in his own safe space as the truckers eat his lunch on Parliament Hill. Like so many of the media he’s bribed, Trudeau was hoping for a January 6 replay when the truckers hit Ottawa. You know… rioters pushing their way into the Parliament buildings, chaos, fires and some deaths. Yes, lots of deaths.
Sadly the truckers wouldn’t comply, outside of a honking horns on Rideau Street and someone allegedly throwing a rock at an EMS crew. So it was necessary for him to scramble his media slappies and invoke Plan B. To convince Safe Spacers of the imminent threat there would now be stories— not of gunplay and coups— but of toothless KKK despoiling the Capital, a Bytown population held hostage, signs of Trumpism and white power trying to seize power.
Lord knows his lackeys tried. Host Nil Kuksal on CBC soiled herself, suggesting it was all just a Putin ploy. . Another gormless CBC host asked if dark forces within the crowd might be grooming hapless truckers into a white power rebellion. CTV tried linking the Truckers to the anniversary of the Quebec City mosque shooting.
Reporters from all networks spotted people with swastikas and rebel flags yet strangely forgot to ask any of them who they were or what they were doing. They chortled with glee as a CPC member of Parliament was photo bombed by some plant carrying a Canadian flag with a swastika. See, they’re all Nazis, went the ledes on the six o’clock news. Great reporting
Ottawa’s Mayor Jim Watson thought condescension might work, telling the protesters that they’d made their point, now GO HOME. Apparently beer-swilling francophones hopping on the cenotaph yelling “Liberté” is an imminent threat to the security of the nation. The right to peaceful assembly exercised recently by Indigenous peoples and BLM— and approved by Trudeau— was now trumped by getting to the LCBO on Elgin Street before it closed .
The cable TV panels and double enders all agreed. Playing footsie with the rowdy protesters was going to end disastrously for the Conservatives. Brave Sir Justin in his bunker would win the day— as soon as his Covid fever broke. Irony alert: the man ordering Canadians to take the magic juice— on threat of job loss and denial of healthcare— was now testing positive after he’d been fully vaccinated with the magic potions.
The protesters did notice, demanding that Mr. Doubtfire meet with them to hear their demand for removal of vaccine mandates and passports. Now it was serious. Chairman Blackface had to move to Plan C. Emerging like Wiarton Willie from his RCMP-protected lair Trudeau told a video press event he was never going to soil his hands by going to meet the protesters. They were merchants of “antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia” primed at any moment to spread Covid and explosives. They want to overthrow the democratically elected government!
Again the press stenographers taking Trudeau’s bribes united in cheering his master stroke, demonizing the demonstrators for the umpteenth time. (Oddly, the Bloq leader disagreed. ) They ignored polls released Monday that showed the percentage of Canadians who want to abandon Trudeau’s lockdowns, mandates and punishments had zoomed from 40 percent to 54 percent— in one month. IOW, they agree with the truckers.
To Justin, it was all mob terror staging a coup. Again, Convoy leaders assured the fourth estate they didn’t want to take over government. They wanted an end to infringements on their charter rights. They wanted their elected representatives— Conservatives included— to hear the voice of the common people. They wanted Erin O’Toole to ignore the Globe & Mail and show leadership (too late to save his job BTW).
And they wanted the acquiescent media to stop acting as the Pravda wing of the PMO. (CBC: “Experts suggest containment, fines and giving protesters a deadline to leave”) Because the safe space created for the Family Compact is its last line of defence for this regime. The scribes and experts intoning mournfully about the death of civilization are actually lamenting the demise if their own class.
FOX TV’s provocateur Tucker Carlson spent 22 minutes at the top of his Monday show— the highest rated in U.S. cable TV— mocking this pretence of the comic opera on Parliament Hill, lampooning the PM’s costume changes and the failures of media such as CTV’s Paula Newton to stop writing for each other. If CBC’s 22 Minutes were still funny they’d do this piece.
Gimlet-eyed observers of the human condition, the media fail to see the ground shifting beneath them. The privilege of defining the world from downtown Ottawa— a privilege they’ve assumed for decades— is ending. Talking to your NIMBY friends is not reporting. As Carlson noted, the truckers are the messengers, but the crowds supporting them across the nation are the new reality.
If Trudeau weren’t buried in his bunker fighting manfully against Covid, he might see that, too. But that is asking him to grow a pair and leave hiding. The good news? Till the truckers leave he can listen to Joni Mitchell and Neil Young on a Russian DVD sites. Take that Spotify!
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Bruce Dowbiggin
On The Clock: Win Fast Or Forever Lose Your Chance
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.
Bruce Dowbiggin
No, Really. Carney Is An Outsider. And Libs Are Done
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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