Bruce Dowbiggin
The A-Z Of Covid-19: The Awful, Terrible, No-Good 24 Months
“There is no scientific truth, only replicable science. Then it becomes theory, but not law. And not truth. There are fundamental laws of physics that have been overturned. Law is not truth, law is law, and in science, law can be overturned.” Clayton Fox, Tablet
The Covid-19 pandemic has not been about law or truth or the virus itself. The issue has been the inability of our vaunted healthcare— pride of the nation— to deal with the surge produced in 2020 and 2021. Despite assurances from politicians, administrators and media, it collapsed, causing the deaths of tens of thousands who didn’t have Covid at all.
If nothing else the two-year calamity known as #Covid-19 has provided an entry-level symposium on science. Or “The Science”, according to people like Justin Trudeau who have no idea about science. Here is the A-Z on what we’ve learned about the terrible, awful, no good, very bad 24 months.
A is for Antibodies, natural immunity. T cells. They were, originally, nature’s miracle workers. When anti-vaxxers suddenly claimed they were better than vaccines, natural immunity was shunned by White Coats who demanded compliance to The Science. Now, after the failure of boosters to end the pandemic, natural immunities are again declared ten times better than boosters. Because Science.
B is for Bats. From Chinese caves to your memorial service, the winged creatures were the unloved vehicles that brought the virus to the world. All it took was a little gain-of-function, a few international flights and— voila— five million dead.
C is for Covid Convoy. Truckers were heroes till Skippy Trudeau decided to revoke their border-crossing status for indeterminate reasons. So they came to Ottawa to protest. Trudeau called them Nazis, misogynists, racists and more. Then he hid. Now we have martial law. And maybe a run on the banks. Go figure.
D is for Deaths. With Covid. From Covid. Caused by Covid precautions. Accompanied by Covid co-morbidities. Average age of Covid death is still 82 years old. So make kids wear masks all the time and stay at home. Even though they don’t die of Covid, and they’re very poor spreaders of the virus.
E is for Election. Because, let’s be honest. The Dems were doomed till Covid came along. Not believing their luck they used it to beat Trump. And get the media to STFU about Hunter Biden. Okay, hundreds of thousands died, often away from their loved ones. But you can’t make a Biden omelette without a few broken eggs.
F is for Fauci Fear. He went from Time Man of the Year to Man Out Of Time when his Chinese connections exposed him as a dog killer. Making half a million a year at age 81 didn’t help his image either. Or saying criticizing him was criticizing Science. But that’s what happens when you use burner phones to orchestrate results that keep China happy.
G is for Gain of Function. See Fauci (above). In trying to hide his multiple Chinese flip/ flops on whether he’d funded the deadly virus research Fauci inadvertently revealed he’d funded cruel experiments on beagles. Then he tried to explain medical experiments were better for dogs than being dinner from the Wuhan wet market. Americans still don’t know why he was paying for Frankenstein science.
H is for Hydroxychloriquine. Around forever for treating malaria, hydroxy showed promising results in early therapeutic treatment of Covid symptoms. Then Trump mentioned it. Suddenly the CDC banned it from consideration among the proper people. CNN called it voodoo. If you persisted you were kicked off Facebook. Again, people died, but Joe Biden.
I is for Ivermectin. Or as the MSNBC college of surgeons called it, horse de-wormer— forgetting that established drugs can have multiple applications in therapeutics ie. popular blood thinner warfarin is rat poison. Again, ivermectin was abandoned due to Trump interest. Let ‘em die. He’s not getting any wins.
J is for Junk science. See H) and I) above. Anything not considered a new vaccine produced by mega-corps was junk as far as the WHO/ CDC and Health Canada was considered. (And their pool-boy media) So no early treatment. No vitamin therapy. No Alex Berenson on Twitter preaching heresy about less-than-perfect vaccines. Cancel him in the interest of Science. Or Joe Biden. Take your pick. Neither is what it used to be.
K is for Kids. The fulcrum of unnecessary infection paranoia. So dangerous that U17s were banished home for schooling, had their sports and activities cancelled, were forced to wear masks everywhere but bed. Couldn’t see their grandparents. COVID deaths account for 0.673 percent of all deaths among U.S. children under 17— almost all of them with co-morbidities. They produce samples too minimal to kill Granny. Still they’re masked and distanced in many so-called progressive areas.
L is for Lies. To maintain the purity of the narrative it became necessary to create new realities. The Virus didn’t come from the Wuhan lab. The virus can come off of surfaces. Six feet is the distance to avoid transmission. Cloth and paper masks prevent transmission. You can hold your breath if Magic Johnson says, “Hey, let’s take a selfie”. But greatest of all: 15 days to flatten the curve.
M is for Morbidities. While WHO/ CDC/ Health Canada/ media promoted universal vulnerability, statistics showed that co-morbitdies were real keys to death in over-60s: obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, respiratory disease, kidney disease, and malignancy. While those people were fast tracked for beds, anti-vaxxers were sent to education camps in Australia.
N is for New Normal. Wearing masks 24/7. Distancing in lineups. Obsessive hand sanitizing. Working from home. Fist bumping. Isolating in homes. Parties with four or fewer people. Cancelling friends who don’t agree with your fears. All now normal.
O is for O’Toole Orthodoxy. While Trudeau slavishly followed the WHO (read: Chinese) script, causing severe societal strain, CPC leader Erin O’Toole stood aside twiddling his thumbs as civil liberties and freedoms were eliminated. Played Liberal Lite in a very winnable election. Lost badly. Replaced by the 2022 Convoy. Good riddance.
P is for Passports. Speaking of losing civil liberties and freedoms, the imposition of public-health passports might have been the worst (before the Emergency Measures Act). Allowing waiters, bus drivers, pool boys, bar bouncers, flight attendants and ticket takers to examine your private health record sanctioned by government. Because Science.
Q is for Quarantine. Vestige of when political leaders thought they could out-run the virus using test-and-trace whack-a-mole. Leaving the elderly to die awful, lonely deaths in LT care facilities. Spectacular failure culminating in Trudeau locking up Canadians returning to country in hotels they had to pay for. Upside was seeing every Netflix/ Prime series while locked in home for 14 days.
R is for Rogan. Once a comedian/ martial arts guy, now vilified by the Covid Cult for having dissenters on his wildly popular (10 million +) podcast. Peak Rogan was Neil Young’s demand he be kicked off Spotify for sins against the orthodoxy. After a momentary bobble in which he apologized for upsetting Karens he seems back on message track.
S is for Swab. There may be more annoying things in life than having a swab jammed into your nasal cavities by worker dressed like hazmat specialist. But for the moment can’t think what they are.
T is for Tam & Trudeau. The Glitter Twins of the pandemic in Canada. Reversed all early mask/ travel/ distance research in favour of WHO-recommended Chinese lockdown scheme in mid-2000. Refused to budge despite clear evidence that epidemiologists shouldn’t be running the economy or communications. The origin of the Convoy discontent.
U is for Useless PCR positives. Despite clear evidence from even Fauci that viral testing with too many cycles provided 75 percent false positives, Canadian/ American governments, sports leagues, educators, airlines etc still used them exclusively to ruin your life. And media employed them to achieve peak virus fear. Unconscionable. But Science.
V is for Ventilators. In 2020 they were the lifesaver demanded by people like governors Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy and Gavin Newsom. Manufacturers adapted production lines to making them. Then it was discovered they were lethal to the very ill. Now? Crickets.
W is for Wuhan/ WHO. The Bethlehem of Covid 19 and its Three Kings. Concerted efforts by the Chinese, WHO and implicated Western medical pooh-bahs have stalled definitive proof of the virus’ origins. Current line: Wuhan lab: 2-1; Wuhan wet market 5-1. Winnipeg lab: 25-1. Asteroid landing in China: 10,000- 1.
X is for Xi. The Godfather. If he designed Covid-19 as revenge on the West he isn’t saying (at least till the end of the Beijing Olympics). But he couldn’t have done better. The possibilities that this was his strategic use of germ warfare are chilling. Almost as chilling as the people protecting the West are Biden and Trudeau.
Z is for Zeneca, Astra, one of the approved firms that came up with something resembling a vaccine in nine months. These test drugs soon became the only hope for mankind. Therapeutics were verboten. Then it was discovered they had the shelf life of yogurt. So more were ordered. Profits rose faster than Elon Musk’s rocket ship. But why not? They were given blanket immunity from legal prosecution. Because Science.
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
Trump is holding a mirror to a postmodern Canadian state that still thinks it’s Bob & Doug McKenzie and polite folk opening the door. Maybe it was at one time, but since Justin Trudeau spread his chocolatey goodness on the nation it’s now a world centre for money laundering that won’t pay its defence obligations.
The hysteria was mint this past weekend from panicky Canadians acting as if Donald Trump’s tariffs were a Pearl Harbor sneak-attack. They booed the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events, had conniption fits of self pity (‘we’ve been friends for so long!”) and generally acted like fainting goats by forgoing U.S. sun holidays.
Whatever the merits of Trump’s beefs the indignant reaction revealed a very unsettled nation. Punishing America by pulling wines you’ve already paid for off the shelves is baffling. Cancelling a Star Link contract with Elon Musk is just a self goal. (A chastened Musk replied, “Oh well!”) Alberta premier Danielle Smith, who’d used negotiating to get a cutout for Canadian oil, being roundly called a vendu by the righteous Eastern horde was precious.
Charter members of the crumbling legacy media outdid themselves in promoting Trudeau’s fanciful Team Canada theme. “This is a mind poisoned with grievance and resentment,” raged CBC panelist Andrew Coyne. “So coked up on his own bile that even in a moment of maximum national peril his first thought is how to use it to settle scores with the rest of the country.”
Well then. It was all rather unseemly. Noted Dilbert creator Scott Adams, “Canada’s response to Trump’s tariffs is to be publicly sad about it.” But are Trump’s concerns genuine? Is he picking unfairly on a longtime pal? The fact is that Trump is holding a mirror to a postmodern Canadian state that still thinks it’s Bob & Doug McKenzie and polite folk opening the door. Maybe it was at one time, but since Justin Trudeau spread his chocolatey goodness on the nation it’s now a world centre for money laundering that won’t pay its defence obligations.
Example: TD Bank was just fined $3B by US regulators for laundering fentanyl drug money back to Communist China. It’s the largest such fine in U.S. history. A fine TD paid without complaint. Trudeau’s Canada is a credit-bubble real estate play inside a WEF construct wrapped up in an entitled clique that sits in first class but only pays economy. (And don’t get us started on the unsolved Sherman murders.)
Having gotten their news from CBC and Toronto Star, the average CDN does not understand any of this. While the Libs/ NDP swoon over climate and pronouns, Canada has become a place that Trump and other nations simply don’t trust. Security officials fear that anything said to Trudeau’s government will end up getting to China or other bad actors. And many of those same bad actors are domiciled in Canada at the moment. (The RCMP say there are over 4,000 separate groups dealing drugs in Canada.)
Canada’s exclusion from surveillance organizations like AUKUS and the G7 Quint talks is enough to tell you that Trump is not alone in distrusting Canada. Under the previous Obama doctrine, Canada was cool so long as it did DEI, ESG and had kittens over climate. Biden let the Great White North snooze away under Trudeau. The new American administration, however, has a higher bar of expectations.
Ones Trudeaupia has not met. How do you describe America’s sense of astonishment when it asked its “loyal friend” Canada not to import 5,000 undocumented Gazans during this current shooting war, not wanting terrorist sympathizers along its northern border. Then, out of spite, Trudeau’s response was to bring them in, give them healthcare and do photo ops with them?
Trudeau has also lectured Americans for electing Trump and not a woman in 2024. No wonder Trump played them last weekend about their lax border security. One of the “brilliant” ripostes on borders — repeated by all the clever people— was that only one percent of America’s fentanyl comes from Canada. For those who think that’s a mic-drop moment consider: that’s fentanyl seized by America at the border.
Here, Canada’s international crime agency destroys the one-percent argument. Canada is a major manufacturer and distributor of fentanyl. How major? There is a technique used by international drug and money launderers called the Vancouver Model.
As a recent discovery of 8 Kg during a truck stop in Swift Current illustrates, the amounts undiscovered in Canada and the U.S. that originate from shipments to Montreal or Vancouver are way more than the CDN media parroted over the weekend. For those booing the Star Spangled Banner, note that 8 kg. is enough for four million deadly doses of fentanyl. (B.C. NDP premier David Eby had to confess he can’t even begin to inspect all the drugs flowing through Vancouver).
This story of a Punjabi driver arrested in Manitoba with $50M in meth in his truck gives you the flavour. Last month, Toronto police seized 835kg from a truck and stash houses across the city. And, say experts, there are more terror suspects coming from Canada to America than from Mexico. Now tell us why the unchecked importation, distribution and profits from the drugs are not significant in a trade deal.
Speaking of truckers, Canada’s explosion in newly arrived cross-border truck drivers is another huge issue for Americans. As Toronto business writer Stephen Punwasi @stephenpunwasi explains a good portion of the “students” coming into the nation are getting a very different education on life in Canada. “Canada had no checks or balances for its study program. No background checks or school verification. Just show up at the airport w/ proof of funds, and a letter they won’t verify. That’s it. ” These “graduates” quickly end up in a rig running contraband drugs, guns and tech to supplement their minuscule earnings.
“Between 2017 & 2024, Ontario went from 80 truck driving schools to 280. The province has 6 auditors for 600 private career colleges—almost half for trucks, apparently. No enforcement standards.
“To recap,” continues Punwasi:
-
“money laundering capital of the world
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– no school regulations
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– criminals run certifications
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– desperate folks from developing countries w/no standard of entry
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– no scrutiny for x-border traffic”
Canadian trucking executives know the problem in the industry. They say new entrants make no money trucking, but they do make for easy “‘runners’. It is rampant. One executive says his firm has virtually exited the cross-border business, because of the changing demographics. These truckers— many of them speaking no English— are housed in suburban neighbourhoods in Brampton or Mississauga or Surrey, stacked by the dozens in barracks homes in between their sorties to the U.S. and the ROC. Attempts to restore local zoning laws are fought by the ringleaders.
But hey, says CBC, Trump exaggerates the problem. He’s also contemptuous of the current attempt to slide climate alarmist Mark Carney into Trudeau’s seat. The dread of being lectured by a CBC-approved suit like Carney is only leavened by the prospect that he can deal with Pierre Poilievre when— if— the Liberals ever let Canadians voice their will. This is what Canada’s Left call progress. Save the tundra and the Arctic swallow but crater the economy.
A final feature of the pearl clutching this past weekend was the idea that Trump would somehow invade or otherwise claim Canada as a 51st state. Canadians seem to feel that Trump’s job is to pacify their feelings, not act on behalf of those Americans who decisively elected him and his mandate. Like victims of a high school break-up Canadian progressives are now tearing up all the letters and sending back the jewelry from their tryst. Memo to Canada: Being U.S. president is not joining a book club. As such you don’t elect a trust-fund poseur.
Whatever Trump’s jest, the last thing he wants is the culture nightmare of Quebec, the vast land claims of the native tribes, the welfare status of the Maritimes and the unbearable smugness of the Flora MacDonald Marching Band in Ontario. If Canada or Canadians are to join America it will be because they’ve asked in, not be captured. Trump would dictate the terms, and he doesn’t want a dozen new Mississippis, especially ones with poutine.
For now, the 30-day pause in tariffs allows time to drop the theatrics and get on with the reality of an economy that will consume Canada’s economy at the present rate. By week’s end even Trump’s vitriolic critics like the Globe&Mail were offering backhanded acknowledgements that, however crude they found the president’s tactics, he did wake up Canadians to the issue of Canada’s lassitude on defence and the border. Doomberg summed up the conflict. “The economic wisdom of applying tariffs is worthy of debate, but the threat of tariffs has proved the perfect instrument for the task. Having weighed 250 daily American deaths on the scale of trade-offs, Trump’s actions have finally acknowledged reality. Godspeed’.”
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.
With the Canada/ U.S. Tariff War going from talking conflict to hot trade war on Feb. 1 there are numerous predictions as to what might happen if the dispute drags on. As the sides in the Ukraine War will tell you very few of the outcomes so far were foreseen by the sides when the shooting started. That’s the nature of these conflicts.
One immediate byproduct seems to be the continued descent toward 60 cents by the Canadian dollar. If Trudeau and his anointed successor Mark Carney are true to character it will also involve billions in cheques going out the door— a la Covid— to those citizens “harmed” by the Liberals stumbling into a highly predictable and easily avoidable trade war. If past is prologue, vast amounts of that money will disappear as bad actors find a way to access the funds. While Canada’s GDP collapses some more.
For the moment, however, let us concentrate on what Justin Trudeau’s ineptitude might be costing Canadian professional sports teams in American-based leagues. On the purely trivial level it means that your beer at the park/ arena will be Canadian suds exclusively. Not cheaper or better. Just Canadian. Owners will stock luxury boxes with Canadian wine, etc. A road trip to see the Canucks in L.A. or the Canadiens in NYC will balloon, too.
But on a more serious level the showdown between Donald Trump and Trudeau could well return Canadian teams in the NHL to the bad-old days of the early 21st century. Despite efforts then to create a Canadian fund to save teams, two clubs— Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques— were forced to sell because of a dollar that bottomed out around 62 cents U.S. Winnipeg went to Phoenix/ Quebec City went to Colorado as a result
In Montreal the MLB Expos also moved— to Washington— after 37 years, because no one in Quebec would/ could pony up the money to make up for the declining dollar or repair the disastrous Olympic Stadium. Expos fans then had the cruel fate of watching Washington win the 2019 World Series after the Expos had never gotten that far. (Nordiques fans saw Colorado win two Stanley Cups after escaping Quebec.)
Why were these teams forced to move? Because while teams collect revenues locally in Canadian dollars almost all their payroll and other costs are paid in American dollars. So when you see the Toronto Blue Jays facing a possible US $500 million price tag to keep star Vladimir Guerrero you’re really talking about raising $750,000 million in CDN revenues to meet the demand. Multiply those jumps over a 25-man roster and you’re talking a huge jump in payroll— or being consigned to after-ran status.
While no one is about to hold a tag day for Toronto it will make the Jays’ job of competing in a division with the big-spending New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox that much harder. With a national market of almost 40 million now to exploit they still have resources. But will American players want to play in Canada during a hot trade war between the nations? Now that yahoos fed by a doltish CDN media have started booing the Star Spangled Banner in Ottawa and Vancouver before games do you think that will encourage American stars on teams there to stick around?
But the NHL is where the biggest losses will be seen. Already there have been concerns about the Jets.2 surviving in Winnipeg. Last week it was revealed that after years spent coming back from Covid revenue shortages, the NHL is going to raise its salary cap from today’s US $88 million to as much as an estimated US $115 million in three or four years. The news that players will no longer have escrow payments held back to compensate owners for revenue shortages was greeted with cheers by players and their agent.
The boost in the cap will likely mean that today’s US$14 million peak (Leon Draisaitl) will also advance to somewhere just beneath US$20 million a season. And while that figure is a few years off, teams will have to start negotiating today with their stars with that figure in mind if they wish to retain them.
The test case will be superstar Connor McDavid who is due for a new contract after 2025-26. For the small-market Edmonton Oilers that will mean creating a template that buys him out of estimated salary later by boosting his salary before the cap arrives at its peak. With Draisaitl already pulling down top dollar the Oilers’ resources will be stretched thin to accommodate McDavid— while still paying the rest of the roster.
Could the drop in the dollar produce another Gretzky-like trade for Edmonton when the Oilers were forced to dump the greatest scorer in NHL history to L.A. because his worth exceeded the Oilers’ ability to pay? We chronicle the trade in depth in our new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey.
The fate of hockey stars will be only a small piece of any future U.S. trade deals. But they will be highly visible to Canada’s hockey fans. Not being able to satisfy them is a political price no pelican wants to face. But given the current intransigence by Justin Trudeau scrambling to stay in office it is far from improbable.
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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