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Bruce Dowbiggin

Sorry, Justin. Social Media Won’t Give You A Mulroney Epitaph

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The polls suck. His party is restless watching his constant gaffes. His NDP allies are similarly hoping he quits before he brings down their party, too. The public now laughs at his Happy Ways demeanour and lush living on the public dime.

It seems inevitable that Justin Trudeau is at the end of his runway as prime minister of Canada. If the polls are right, he could experience one of the greatest electoral repudiations when the federal election finally happens. Just as he replaced the dour technician Stephen Harper, Trudeau will be dismissed by the public, seen as yesterdayā€™s man.

In desperation Trudeau has tried labelling his nemesis Pierre Poilievre as a Trump wannabe, a divisive alt-right force who would reverse the generous graft heā€™d bestowed on Canadians. His paid media have picked up the theme calling Poilievreā€™s strategy ā€œshamefulā€, ā€œcynicalā€ and his ā€œscorched-earth approachā€ is ā€œcontributing to a breakdown in overall faith in the systemā€. You go with that.

What makes them mad are Poilievreā€™s insouciant takedowns of Liberal hacks and media flacks, best epitomized by the apple-eating destruction of a lazy B.C. journalist out for a cheap score to raise his profile. A host of self-appointed press figures lost their minds. ā€œYou are not supposed to treat interviewers this way!ā€ Since that moment, Poilievre has repeated the formula on cabinet ministers and played-out press figures.

Leaving Liberals and their wind therapists in the press to wonder what will be Skippyā€™s legacy in ten or fifteen years if he canā€™t control the messaging? Most look at the recent funeral for Brian Mulroney and the forgiving attitude from his former enemies toward Mulroney. Indeed, those who watched Wayne Gretzky and others eulogize the 18th PM of Canada as a statesman assume that this charity will eventually be extended to Trudeau.

Sure, Justin told the UN his citizens are genocidal, installed felons to cabinet posts, applauded Nazis in ParliamentĀ  and showered his pals with graft. But wasnā€™t Mulroney also found counting bribe money from paper bags in a hotel room? Surely the charity shown to Mulroney will also be extended to Trudeau in the fullness of time?

It would be if the media/ government apparatus that existed in the Mulroney 1980s were the ones writing the epitaphs. ā€œLet bygones be bygonesā€. But this fantasy scenario misses the collapse in authority suffered by that media/ government apparatus the past decade. A collapse Poilievre has duly noted.

While they rail against Poilievreā€™s dismissive attitude toward them, the Conservative leader understands the new dynamic where votersā€” especially the youngā€” get their information from social media, not the scrum theatre of the past, engineered by politicians and the people who followed them. If Poilievre appears dismissive of their game itā€™s because he knows theyā€™re irrelevant to him.

This outrage from the Family Compact comes from people like the self-obsessed MSNBC staff who whined like babies at the thought of a GOP voice on their shows. An attitude parroted by their Canadian cousins fed money by the ruling class. No wonder Trudeau is rushing through laws to censor the internet. X hates him, and he knows it.

After years of toeing the line, however, influential journalists are suddenly recognizing the damage done by their obsessionsā€” and the peril in whichĀ  their business finds itself. NPR Senior business editor Uri Berliner shocked many with his confession that Trump-obsessed NPR ā€œlost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.

ā€œToday, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. populationā€. A segment so deranged by Trumpā€™s election in 2016 that it fed phoney stories about Russiagate and Hunter Bidenā€™s sonā€™s laptop to its audience over Trumpā€™s term. NPRā€™s managing editor for news dismissed revelations over Hunter spilling the beans on Dad: ā€œWe donā€™t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we donā€™t want to waste the listenersā€™ and readersā€™ time on stories that are just pure distractions.ā€Ā We know now this senior journalist helped bury a generational story.

Getting it deliberately wrong is bad enough, continued Berliner,. ā€œWhatā€™s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection. Especially when you expect high standards of transparency from public figures and institutions, but donā€™t practice those standards yourself. Thatā€™s what shatters trust and engenders cynicism about the media.ā€

As Berliner suggests, a population that understands the massive Covid deception is now dumping the news sources they long trusted. Hollywood, too, is reaping the whirlwind in cables cut from the nightly Colbert Chorus of Insanity. A worried NY Times has tried a limited mea culpa on overselling the pandemic (one of their reporters claimed in 2022 that Covid had ā€œracistā€ roots), but the stain of its irresponsible censoring of any critics endures.

In Canada, no one at CBC, CTV, the Globe & Mail or the Toronto Star is even remotely close to owning up to their role in creating panic over Covid. (One prominent reporter received the Order of Canada for his support for lockdowns, vaccines). They have ceased reprinting Trudeaupian propaganda on the virus and the vaccines. But the silence on their enthusiastic support for closing of schools, the isolation of the dying and the firing of those reluctant to try untested vaccines speaks louder than any mealy-mouthed correction.

So the next time the prime minister and his media pals try to portray the earnestā€” sometimes ploddingā€” messaging of Poilievre as a new Dark Age, consider the source. And then move into the future. Because it wonā€™t be written anymore by the people who assume their infallibility.

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, heā€™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 brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

From Heel To Hero: George Foreman’s Uniquely American Story

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“The more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know.ā€ā€” George Foreman

For those who thought Donald Trumpā€™s 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.

Itā€™s 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, ā€œDown 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 Foremanā€™s 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 Foremanā€™s 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 worldā€™s most famous man, and the brute against the background of music and third-world politics made it an Oscar winner.

But itā€™s largely about Ali. It doesnā€™t do justice to the enormity of Foremanā€™s 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 wasnā€™t 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 ā€œold-manā€ power.

Instead of the dour character who was felled by Ali, this Foreman was transformed in the publicā€™s 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 pitchmanā€™s 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 ā€™N Loud, delighting audiences whoā€™d once reviled him. He cracked up Johnny Carson.

Foremanā€™s 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.

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2025 Federal Election

Chinese Gangs Dominate Canada: Why Will Voters Give Liberals Another Term?

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Thereā€™s an old joke that goes, the Japanese want to buy Vancouver but the Chinese arenā€™t selling. Glib, yes. But with enough truthā€” Chinese own an estimated 30 percent of Vancouverā€™s real estate marketā€” to pack a punch; Especially in this truncated rush to anoint Mark Carney PM before anyone finds out exactly whoā€™s his Mama.

The advertised narrative for this election is Donald Trumpā€™s vote of no confidence in the modern Canadian state. A segment of Canadiansā€” mostly Boomersā€” see this as intolerable foreign interference in the countryā€™s sovereignty. So rather than look inward at why Canadaā€™s 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 Canadaā€™s 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 itā€™s driving a wedge between generations in the nation. As we like to say, Canadaā€™s contented elites have been sitting in first class for decades but only paying economy.

Theyā€™d like you to forget insinuations that Canada is a global money-laundering capital. Better to blame Trump for the ā€œwillful 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 itā€™s ugly. An estimated trillion dollars from Chinese organized crime has washed through Canada since the 1990s. Theyā€™ve used underground banks and illegal currency smuggling to circumvent the law. Theyā€™ve bribed and intimidated. And theyā€™ve 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, Canadaā€™s economy could fairly be characterized as a real-estate bubble with a drug-money-laundering chaser.Ā  The Chinese Communist Party now operates ā€œpolice 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 ā€œVancouver Modelā€ to help establish Chinese proxies overseas and extend the CPP ā€˜s reach. Hey, the real estate kingpin is named Kash-Ing. (Kaching!) Itā€™s 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. Itā€™s why Canadians were so shocked that TD Bank was fined $3B in the U.S. for allowing money laundering. ā€œNot us! No way! Weā€™re Simon pureā€.

Much of this money ended up in Canadaā€™s feverish real-estate market, with vacant properties creating insane price spirals across the nation. Itā€™s 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 Chretienā€™s Shawinigan riding.

Donations to Trudeauā€™s Montreal riding association and to the Trudeau Foundation were favourites of shadowy Chinese figures. ā€œIn just two days (in 2016), the prime ministerā€™s (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 ridingā€™s 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 Trudeauā€™s 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 Canadaā€™s 2019 and 2021 federal elections, it did undermine the rights of Canadian voters because it ā€œtainted 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 partyā€™s record since 2015 under Carney. So instead of agreeing with Washington about Canadaā€™s 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 Poilievreā€™s task. He has a month to do so. For Canadaā€™s long-term prospects heā€™d 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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