Opinion
Jason “Bumbles” Kenney bumbled again. Will he ever learn or say sorry?

April 2 2015 this article from the National Post came out;
Jason Kenney has long been considered the Conservative party’s best approximation of an heir apparent; a dauphin, if you will. In a caucus notably lacking in strong performers, save for the Prime Minister and a handful of ministers, Mr. Kenney is a star.
Or was.
For it has been reinforced lately, most recently Wednesday, that this minister has a potentially crippling Achilles heel; his very confidence and combativeness, coupled with instant access to social media, lead him to one snafu after another. Making matters worse, having erred, Mr. Kenney is incapable of apology. The words “I’m sorry” apparently cannot pass his lips without causing him to spontaneously combust. In this, the Defence Minister neatly personifies what ails his party as it heads into a make-or-break election; a clench-jawed refusal to admit error or consider fair criticism until the last grainery has been burned, the last well salted and the last bridge bombed.
That was in 2015, now in 2021 it appears nothing has changed.
Last week Ontario’s Finance Minister was stripped of his position when the media disclosed he was in the Caribbean over Christmas. Alberta’s Premier, once referred to in Ottawa as Mr. Bumbles, looked at his government and many Cabinet Ministers, Senior Staff and MLAs including Red Deer South’s Jason Stefan was in fact also out of the country.
Unfortunately Ontario’s Premier Ford only had 1 member lacking the moral compass to stay home, Mr. Bumbles had many.
The Minister in charge of rolling out the vaccine was in Hawaii, coincidentally our vaccine roll out was one of the slowest in Canada. Our bumbling Premier offered;”We weren’t expecting the vaccine til January” so it is Trudeau’s fault that we got vaccines early. He went on to brag that starting now, we are vaccinating 3,000 people per day. With a population of 4.5 million that means we will all be vacinated in 1500 days or about 4 years.
Mr. Kenney still bumbles along, with denials, blaming others, doubling down and refusing to take responsibility or to apologize.
He says he never directed them directly, not to travel even though it has been on the government website.
Some may offer that the Premier is a hands off Premier, more in it for the prestige and photo ops, but his party UCP should get off their high horses and live with all us common folks. You know the ones you warned could be fined $1,000 if we go to Grandma’s house. Does UCP stand for Upper Crust Party? It fits.
Mr. Premier if you want to distance yourself from the moniker; “Mr. Bumbles”. Do something, Take action. Take control of your government.
I remember when Former Premier Prentice and Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith were seen as “too smart by half”. They lost.
Will you last through any more Bumbles? I would try to do your job. Just saying.
Bruce Dowbiggin
Mistrial Declared in Junior Hockey Assault Trial. What Now?

With all the Elbows Up election idiocy you can be forgiven for missing the news this past week that the trial of five former members of the 2018 men’s gold-medal winning Team Canada hockey team was declared a mistrial just a day into the proceedings. The five have all plead not guilty.
On Friday the judge ordered a new jury be empanelled after a half day of evidence in the trial of the players who are accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room in 2018 in London, Ont. Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia has not released the reasons she halted the trial. It comes after outrage over a civil settlement between the victim and Hockey Canada in 2020 forced authorities to pursue the criminal charges.
The graphic nature of the evidence so far promises dramatic testimony should the trial go its full length. Thoughts that one of the quintet might accept a plea deal to roll over on his former teammates— a goal of the police and prosecution— have so far been unrealized. It is expected that the victim will testify.

The low-profile start to the trial in the case is a contrast with the front-page treatment it received after excellent reporting from Katie Strang of The Athletic and Rick Westhead of TSN. At the time the charges were announced in 2024, Michael McLeod and Cal Foote were with the New Jersey Devils, Dillon Dubé was with the Calgary Flames and Carter Hart was with the Philadelphia Flyers. Alex Formenton had been signed by the Ottawa Senators but was playing in Switzerland.
The sensation was amplified by the role of Hockey Canada in the civil case, using funds to pay off the victim. Parliamentary hearings and front-page headlines added to the impact.
As we wrote in January of 2024, the hysteria encouraged the usual radicals to denigrate the national sport. “For the same reason that some think guns kill people, the toffs believe that hockey itself causes outbreaks of macho sexual behaviour. These people cheer for Sweden when it plays Canada because… Canadian hockey is just too down-market for them. Sweaty guys. Cold rinks. Meritocracy. Ick!

“We should clarify here that we mean men’s hockey. Womens’ hockey is not included in the loathing. In fact, metrosexuals from PM Justin Trudeau on down worship the wholesome new PWHL. Skippy recently gave a pep talk to the Ottawa players in their dressing room. Surprise. They lost.
“Players are married to rivals on other teams. Can you get more hip than that? Women’s hockey is nominally about winning; the real prize is equal pay for work of equal value. And the love of the Trudeau cabinet.
“But men’s hockey, with its crude meritocracy, must be shunned at all costs. Pediatric “experts” blame its emphasis on winning for causing kids to drop out.. So when the sordid tale of a 2018 multiple-sex allegation at a golf tournament arrived it warranted a hearing in the Commons, tut-tutting editorials by the score about the over-sexed nature of teenaged young hockey stars and multiple attempts to convict someone, anyone, for the act.
“That’s why the principals eventually pursued a civil case, where rules of evidence are less stringent. A civil case that Hockey Canada quickly paid off from a suspicious slush fund to end the ordeal for everyone. How’d that work out?
”Feminists and the non-binary set howled about this, but after the storm of outrage the media cycle disappeared from the public view. The 20 or so players on the 2018 Team Canada gold medal winners graduated into the NHL, and the league, which had no power to compel testimony nor a criminal charges to rely on, let them play.
“But pressure on police over the following months finally forced criminal charges. Butter cloak of secrecy prevailed. This was highly unsatisfactory. Who was under suspicion? Who was innocent? Player agents and lawyers kept their charges from self-incrimination at all costs.
“How will it end? Will there be convictions or will deals be done? In this time where social-media truths are fungible and Woke causes are paramount no one should hazard a guess. But one thing that will get an airing is the charge that hockey created this climate of sexual permissiveness. The sport must be condemned when its participants break the law.
You think that hockey caused this? That it doesn’t happen in the world of millionaire basketball or football or baseball players? Guess again. Cleveland Browns QB DeShaun Watson faced 24 sexual assault accusations. One former NBA player had seven children by six different women. Former MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer faced sexual assault charges from an alleged assault at his home.
How about the stories of young women who, like the young women pursuing athletes, went backstage at concerts and shows for a rendezvous with a famous rock star like Steven Tyler or Axl Rose and got more than they bargained for.
Or those who tried to climb the political or corporate ladder by submitting to power figures? Hello, Kamala Harris. This case is about power, stardom, privilege and exploitation. Ugly, yes. Life-wrecking for some. But trying to pigeon-hole hockey as the unique engineer of the tragedy is ignorant and irresponsible. “
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.
Addictions
Four new studies show link between heavy cannabis use, serious health risks

Cannabis products purchased in Ontario and B.C., including gummies, pre-rolled joints, chocolates and dried flower; April 11, 2025. [Photo credit: Alexandra Keeler]
By Alexandra Keeler
New Canadian research shows a connection between heavy cannabis use and dementia, heart attacks, schizophrenia and even death
Six months ago, doctors in Boston began noticing a concerning trend: young patients were showing up in emergency rooms with atypical symptoms and being diagnosed with heart attacks.
“The link between them was that they were heavy cannabis users,” Dr. Ahmed Mahmoud, a cardiovascular researcher and physician in Boston, told Canadian Affairs in an interview.
These frontline observations mirror emerging evidence by Canadian researchers showing heavy cannabis use is associated with significant adverse health impacts, including heart attacks, schizophrenia and dementia.
Sources warn public health measures are not keeping pace with rapid changes to cannabis products as the market is commercialized.
“The irony of this moment is that society’s risk perception of cannabis is at an all-time low, at the exact moment that the substance is probably having increasingly negative health impacts,” said Dr. Daniel Myran, a physician and Canada Research Chair at the University of Ottawa. Myran was lead researcher on three new Canadian studies on cannabis’ negative health impacts.
Legalization
Canada was the first G7 country to create a commercial cannabis market when it legalized the production and sale of cannabis in 2018.
The drug is now widely used in Canada.
In the 2024 Canadian Cannabis Survey, an annual government survey of cannabis trends, 26 per cent of respondents said they used cannabis for non-medical purposes in the past year, up from 22 per cent in 2018. Among youth, that number was 41 per cent.
Health Canada’s website warns that cannabis use can lower blood pressure and raise heart rates, which can increase the risk of a heart attack. But the warnings on cannabis product labels vary. Some mention risks of anxiety or effects on memory and concentration, but make no mention of cardiovascular risks.
The annual cannabis survey also shows a significant percentage of Canadians remain unaware of cannabis’ health risks.
In the survey, only 70 per cent of respondents said they had enough reliable information to make informed decisions about cannabis use. And 50 per cent of respondents said they had not seen any education campaigns or public health messages about cannabis.
At the same time, researchers are finding mounting evidence that cannabis use is associated with health risks.
A 2023 study by researchers at the University of Calgary, the University of Alberta and Alberta Health Services found that adults with cannabis use disorder faced a 60 per cent higher risk of experiencing adverse cardiovascular events — including heart attacks. Cannabis use disorder is marked by the inability to stop using cannabis despite negative consequences, such as work, social, legal or health issues.
Between February and April of this year, three other Canadian studies linked frequent cannabis use to elevated risks of developing schizophrenia, dementia and mortality. These studies were primarily conducted by researchers at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and ICES uOttawa (formerly the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences).
“These results suggest that individuals who require hospital-based care for a [cannabis use disorder] may be at increased risk of premature death,” said the study linking cannabis-related hospital visits with increased mortality rates.
The three 2024 studies all examined the impacts of severe cannabis use, suggesting more moderate users may face lower risks. The researchers also cautioned that their research shows a correlation between heavy cannabis use and adverse health effects, but does not establish causality.
Subscribe for free to get BTN’s latest news and analysis – or donate to our investigative journalism fund.
Budtenders
Health experts say they are troubled by the widespread perception that cannabis is entirely benign.
“It has some benefits, it has some side effects,” said Mahmoud, the Boston cardiovascular researcher. “We need to raise awareness about the side effects as well as the benefits.”
Some also expressed concern that the commercialization of cannabis products in Canada has created a race to produce products with elevated levels of THC, the main psychoactive compound that produces a “high.”
THC levels have more than doubled since legalization, yet even products with high THC levels are marketed as harmless.
“The products that are on the market are evolving in ways that are concerning,” Myran said. “Higher THC products are associated with considerably more risk.”
Myran views cannabis decriminalization as a public health success, because it keeps young people out of the criminal justice system and reduces inequities faced by Indigenous and racialized groups.
“[But] I do not think that you need to create a commercial cannabis market or industry in order to achieve those public health benefits,” he said.
Since decriminalization, the provinces have taken different approaches to regulating cannabis. But even in provinces where governments control cannabis distribution, such as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, products with high THC levels dominate retail shelves and online storefronts.
In Myran’s view, federal and provincial governments should instead be focused on curbing harmful use patterns, rather than promoting cannabis sales.
Ian Culbert, executive director of the Canadian Public Health Association, thinks governments’ financial interest in the cannabis industry creates a conflict of interest.
“[As with] all regulated substances, governments are addicted to the revenue they create,” he said. “But they also have a responsibility to safeguard the well-being of citizens.”
Culbert believes cannabis retailers should be required to educate customers about health risks — just as bartenders are required to undergo Smart Serve training and lottery corporations are required to mitigate risks of gambling addiction.
“Give ‘budtenders’ the training around potential health risks,” he said.
“While cannabis may not be the cause of some of these negative health events … it is the intersection at which an intervention can take place through the transaction of sales. So is there something we can do there that can change the trajectory of a person’s life?”
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
Our content is always free – but if you want to help us commission more high-quality journalism, consider getting a voluntary paid subscription.
-
Media1 day ago
CBC retracts false claims about residential schools after accusing Rebel News of ‘misinformation’
-
Bjorn Lomborg1 day ago
Net zero’s cost-benefit ratio is CRAZY high
-
2025 Federal Election1 day ago
Mark Carney Wants You to Forget He Clearly Opposes the Development and Export of Canada’s Natural Resources
-
2025 Federal Election1 day ago
Police Associations Endorse Conservatives. Poilievre Will Shut Down Tent Cities
-
2025 Federal Election1 day ago
Carney’s Hidden Climate Finance Agenda
-
2025 Federal Election1 day ago
Polls say Canadians will give Trump what he wants, a Carney victory.
-
2025 Federal Election1 day ago
Columnist warns Carney Liberals will consider a home equity tax on primary residences
-
2025 Federal Election1 day ago
Nine Dead After SUV Plows Into Vancouver Festival Crowd, Raising Election-Eve Concerns Over Public Safety