Bruce Dowbiggin
Tale Of The Tape: Jerry Vs. Erin As Unifor Fights To Protect Media Slush Funds
After calling the federal election, Justin Trudeau says Canadians need to “counter the ‘she-cession’ and turn it into a ‘she-covery’.”
The writ has dropped and Canadians now have the head-to-head matchup they’ve wanted. Conservative Party of Canada leader Erin O’Toole versus Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, Canada’s largest private union that includes everything from auto workers to TV workers.
Oh, you thought we were going to say the matchup between O’Toole and Justin Trudeau, the sitting prime minister of this frozen shore? That’s what the Racing Form says, no?
Certainly Trudeau is the nominal figure flogging for votes. But with Gerry Butts now a pom-pom boy on the sidelines Trudeau’s most influential and powerful ally is Dias, who heads the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unions— a rabble 310,000 strong.
In the past Dias would have been safely in the camp of the NDP, the traditional home for labour in Canada. But since Jagmeet Singh turned the NDP into the Bernie Sanders Debate Club, a collection of fatuous socialists and Naomi Klein feminists, the NDP has no natural political home for Dias’ traditional hardball labour tactics.
Dias is unapologetic about his union’s desire to crush Conservatives of every stripe in Canada, describing himself as the “worst nightmare” of CPC leaders. Think Jean-Claude Parrot, the firebrand radical who used the Canadian Postal Workers Association as a cudgel to torture Canadians in the pre-digital world.
The union’s recent ad showing a rusted, decrepit pickup truck with O’Toole’s name covering Stephen Harper’s is a nasty piece of agitprop (made ridiculous because the disintegrating pickup is an American brand like the ones his auto members construct). “Canadian voters won’t be fooled by a new name on the bumper,” it promises while labelling the Tories as tools of big business and the filthy oil lobby. (Clearly he hasn’t checked Skippy’s dance card lately)
Unlike Parrot in the 60s and 70s Dias has the media oomf to effect the change he wants for the TV, radio and print journalists in Canada under Unifor’s banner. (CBC journos are represented by a separate but no less Woke union devoted to protecting its billion-dollar budget supplied by Trudeau.)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Unifor President Jerry Dias embrace during the Unifor convention in Ottawa on Wednesday, August 24, 2016. iPolitics/Matthew Usherwood
While the CBC union kept its bias in-house in 2019 , Dias made no bones about using his medias might to get his puppet Justin Trudeau elected. Anyone expecting “balanced” Unifor journalists to go hard on Trudeau’s many failings (moral and ethical) was in for a shock. There was lots of dystopian Stephen Harper hyperbole about Tories enacting Handmaid’s Tale servitude on women and Simon Legree working conditions on the middle class. But calls for Trudeau bashing to quit? Get real.
Sadly for Trudeau and Dias it wasn’t enough to prevent the Liberals from losing their majority, and they have been forced to placate Singh and the self-destructing Greens to stay in power. They’ve complied, helping Trudeau escape a multitude of patronage, corruption, sexual assault, racial appropriation and Covid ineptitude. When that got too tight, he prorogued Parliament to still the baying hounds.
Happily for Dias in the wake of the minority, Trudeau’s Heritage Ministry has rewarded the yeoman service of Unifor’s journalists’ “resistance” in creating a slush fund for media outlets crying poor in Canada. Over $600 million was set aside over the five years for tax credits and other incentives aimed at propping up “struggling” news outlets. (This is addition to the approximate $1.5 billion shovelled into CBC/ Radio Canada to help it big-foot the digital news market in Canada by outspending private outlets.) Trudeau then appointed Unifor as one of eight groups who will help decide which media outlets will qualify for a government handout to journalistic outfits. The happy recipients of this baksheesh rarely explained why they were “struggling”, only that they deserved lotsa’ dough to ward off FOX News coming to Canada to do something something something.
Now, reports say that another payoff has been parcelled off to local journalists as the election takes off. Canadian Heritage was also refusing to disclose which media companies were awarded $61 million in subsidies billed as “emergency relief” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There have been mild plaints of concern from some. The head of the Canadian Association of Journalists, Karyn Pugliese, noted in 2019, ”You have people who are dead set against the government giving any kind of money to media.” But then she added, “We’ve got some people who feel that something is necessary, because it’s important to keep news going.” Translation: Like Buckley’s, we take it but we hate the taste. Right.
The optics are clear. The union for journalists at major media outlets is partisan. How is one supposed to think they can hold Unifor’s opinions yet deliver honest, balanced coverage to Canadians during an election? It’s a bind previous generations strove mightily to avoid. This tranche of journos seems impervious to the mess they’ve made of their credibility.
With so much lucre being spread around, Erin O’Toole certainly has his doubts about their objectivity. He announced this past week that, as part of a Conservative government, he would eliminate the pork currently being fed to media. While keeping Radio Canada and CBC Radio, he’d cut all funding to CBC’s English-language digital operations, slash the English TV budget by 50 per cent, and aim to privatize the English TV operation by the end of his first mandate in government.
“The world of broadcast media has changed dramatically, but our public broadcaster is stuck in the past,” O’Toole said in the video. He indicated he’d also eliminate the special top-up payments to the companies that employ Unifor members.That puts the ball in Dias’ corner. How hard should he go in protecting the perks of Canada’s fading media interests? He serves as a useful foil to Trudeau, whose word salads and pontifications have grown increasingly banal to voters. With his pit-bull attacking style he can savage newcomer O’Toole in the harshest terms (although the CPC ads with Trudeau as a Willy Wonka character in a dress singing for a majority were venomous, too).
But Dias is already facing a public that believes the government should be fighting Covid-19 and economic issues, not each other. Push his members’ biases too hard— as Trudeau is doing— and he risks losing a great deal of an electorate sour on media’s performance over Covid, the border, Afghanistan, WE Charity, climate reset and much more.
As the cocky Nova Scotia Liberals learned this week in blowing a big lead to the Conservatives just hours after the federal election was called, six weeks is a long time.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
There’s a truism that the real world bears no resemblance to the worlds we imagine in our heads. From far-right patriots stockpiling guns in the mountains of Wyoming to unhinged antifa voidoids shouting “Nazi” at the McGill quad, the real world offers no resemblance to the ones they’re demonizing. The same goes for centre-middle voters who still watch the network 6 PM news or the wolves on Wall Street creating a new equity bubble..
Their assumptions are based on narratives created with themselves at the centre of an epic national struggle. In Canada, for instance, the only constants in the consciousness have been hockey and the equalization scheme. In the U.S. honouring Old Glory and the constitution is a stronger bond, but the national myth is still diffuse. Rarely have the two nations shared an animating principle.
Until this moment. Now there is a central force at work on both sides of the border. A core issue so deep and dangerous that all agree it forms the heart of their current existence. We speak, of course, of Donald J. Trump, the 45/47 POTUS. For better or worse, the cult of the Donald forms the seminal belief system in both America and Canada. He is, in the words of Mark Carney, transformational.
The reasons are not the same. For the Left Trump is the vulgar partisan leading America to ruin and perhaps civil war, For the Right he is the avenger, the fearless force for goodness who will restore America to greatness. Both sides laugh at him. For the Left it’s a derisive cackle. For the Right, it’s an affectionate chortle.
But neither side dares ignore him at the moment. Some might say, what about Obama? Wasn’t he a transforming force in his 2008-2016 presidency? Actually Obama’s overwhelming privilege in the absence of accomplishment is the reason Trump has ascended to this status. After the former leader of the Choom Gang in Hawaii had his pals curb-stomp Mitt Romney in 2012 the Right sought someone who fought dirty, too. Who’d punch back.
And they got him in Trump, who has perfected the intervention method used by Blake, the brutal salesman manager in Glengarry Glen Ross. Raw, unsparing, unforgiving. “Put that coffee down! Coffee’s for closers only. You think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you! I’m here from downtown. I’m here from Mitch and Murray. And I’m here on a mission of mercy. Your name’s Levine? You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?
Dave Moss: I don’t gotta sit here and listen to this shit.
Blake: You certainly don’t, pal, ’cause the good news is… you’re fired. The bad news is… you’ve got, all of you’ve got, just one week to regain your jobs starting with tonight.”
Like Trump, Blake flaunts his wealth. “This watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 in sales commissions last year. How much you make? You see, pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing.”
He’s unapologetic. “I came here because Mitch and Murray asked me to. They asked me for a favour. I said the real favour, follow my advice and fire your fucking ass, because a loser is a loser!” His rude style has ended the Obama era for good.
In the wake of crushing Hamas he has rendered America’s progressive Left a stammering shell of its former self. Its Boomer demo is dazed, and its radical Left is talking insurrection. They tried to shoot him (twice), they tried to jail him. They tried to impeach him. They tried to link him to Jeffery Epstein. He was undeterred. Came back stronger as president in 2024. You may not like it, but those are the facts.
If America has a Trump fixation, it’s no less toxic in Canada where his intervention in the 2025 federal election shattered the polite conceits Canadians live with. He grabbed Trudeau by his fashionable lapels and hissed, “You’re a nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here? Close!”
In America, this straight talk created a debate on its future. Faced with the same raw assessments of their nation as no better than a 51st state, Canadians rejected Trump’ and elected the nostalgia party of Mark Carney, flown in at the last minute to bury Trudeau’s mess. Assisted by their purchased media the Liberals avoided all talk of the country’s perilous finances, indigenous claims and separation threats. And ran on Trump.
Not much has changed since. Canadians eager to avoid self assessment have boycotted U.S. alcohol and travel. Their Laurentian elites— who months before considered their country a genocidal state— now paint rosy portraits of their land. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s critical style is demeaned. All because of Trump.
Meanwhile, Carney’s Liberals gave Stellantis about $15 billion for EV battery production but failed to secure any guarantees. Stellantis now will cease plans for Jeep Compass production originally slated for Brampton Ontario, and relocate their operations to Illinois. Ontario premier Doug Ford is blaming Trump.
In spite of the repeated blows to the economy, Trump’s role as whipping boy remains unshakeable in Canada nine months after the election. We would like to say you can only blame Trump for so long. Surely the impending $100B deficit budget and talk of Alberta/ Quebec cession will stir some to stop blaming the man staging the intervention and look at themselves.
But this being Canada you’d probably be wasting your breath. Already there is talk of a snap winter election to restore the Liberal majority before the NDP choose a new leader. The bot world keeps ignoring the flames while saying what a lovely fireplace! After urging Palestinian statehood Carney scurries to the Hamas ceasefire ceremony where Trump calls him “president”.
You can’t make this stuff up, But until reality destroys the fantasy worlds in his opponents’ heads expect Blake to knock on the door to announce, “We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired. Get the picture?”
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 . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
It is a day that lives in infamy for Buffalo Bills fans. Jan. 27, 1991, with Buffalo against the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXV. Behind 20-19 with eight seconds left, Scott Norwood, a former All-Pro, attempted a 47-yard game-winning field goal. The kick was, in the immortal words of Al Michaels, wide right.
In the days of the Bills’ four consecutive losing trips to the Super Bowl a 47-yard field goal was within the range of an All Pro kicker. Still it was considered anything but automatic. And kicks of over 50 yards were moon shots with a high degree of failure. Sixty yards? Please, don’t make us laugh.
But as anyone watching field goals in the NFL and CFL can attest the distance barrier has been shattered. NFL kickers are making 72.5 percent of field goals from at least 50 yards. Four kicks have been made from at least 60 yards — one shy of the single-season record. Tampa Bay’s Chase McLaughlin hit a 65 yarder against Philadelphia in Week 4, one yard short of Justin Tucker’s record set in 2021.
Last Sunday Evan McPherson of Baltimore hit a 67-yarder that was wiped out by a late timeout called by Green Bay’ HC Matt LaFleur. (Jacksonville Jaguars kicker Cam Little hit a 70-yard field goal, but it was in preseason and not an official record.)
What makes this onslaught more interesting is that the record for longest FG in the NFL had stood 43 years from Tom Dempsey’s game-winning 63-yarder in 1970 against Detroit for New Orleans. (Dempsey, who has no toes on his right foot wore a special kicking boot.) It took Matt Prater and the light air of Denver to establish a 64 yarder on December 8, 2013. Since then it’s been bombs away.
Dallas’ Brandon Aubrey is the current king of effortless distance, regularly pounding them through from over 60. Many expect him to break the 70-yard mark. (Airlines have movies on flights that long.) No wonder then that the NFL has set records in each of the last four seasons for 50-yard field goals. The total of 195 in 2024 was double the total from every NFL season until 2015.
The combination of distance training plus a few new rules has revolutionized game strategy in today’s game. With the so-called Dynamic kickoff rules forcing more returns, teams are regularly starting drives at the 35- or 40-yard line. In late-game situations top quarterbacks like Buffalo’s Josh Allen or Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes need to get only a couple of first downs to get in the range of their kickers.
Now, a TD with under a minute left is not the death sentence for teams with one of the better kickers— as Bills fans will remember from their crushing loss in the AFC championship game to the Chiefs in 2022. The game featured 25 points scored in the final two minutes of regulation. The Chiefs took just 11 seconds to get to Harrison’s Butker’s range for a tying 47-yard field goal, then won in overtime.
Once the kicker played another position. Today they are specialists. The science of kicking has also improved with a plethora of kicking camps and coaches springing up to train the latest generation of long-distance drivers of the ball. With only 30 jobs in the NFL the competition is fierce, and only the very best get even a look at the pros, let alone s job. But with the money paid to a steady kicker there are thousands each year refining their craft and strengthening their techniques to get a sniff.
Another innovation improving distance was the league allowing teams to prepare their own kicking balls for games. Now they receive a supply of 60 game balls before the season to use in games. 49ers kicker Eddy Pineiro estimates the broken-in balls add maybe three or four yards to the distance on kicks. The rules stipulate that no artificial heating, stretching or inflating are allowed but Jets kicker, veteran Nick Folk, says that it gives him. Comfort zone.
“We get to kind of do just like quarterbacks get whatever they want to do to the ball, as long as it looks like a football and the logo’s still there and all that stuff,” Folk told AP. “I think they’re pretty lenient with that. It’s a very welcoming thing to be able to kind of look at a ball and be like: ‘All right, I want to kick this one this week, I want to kick this one this week.’”
In the CFL the place-kicking game is about to get a big shock as the league moves goal posts from the goal line to the back of the new, smaller end zones. Kickers will now be forced to kick much further for three points, while offences will play on a smaller field that requires more emphasis on TDs.
Paul McCallum stroked a 63-yard to set the league’s record, and like the NFL, CFL kickers are constantly pushing their range in a league with only one indoor surface. Unlike the NFL, the CFL allows PKers to use a tee. Suffice to say the reconfigured field will take getting used to. (Already traditionalists are fuming.) At least we don’t have the rouge on missed FGs to kick around any more.
For now the quest for a 70-yard field goal continues. The question will be how does the NFL react to re-balance the field’s dynamics to protect the integrity of scoring.
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 . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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