Bruce Dowbiggin
Unequal Measures: Trudeau Civil Liberties Aren’t Civil And They’re Not About Liberty
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There is no freedom without order under the law, and there can be no order under the law without freedom.” — John Turner
While the Inquiry into the Emergency Measures Act— also known as Here, You Take Responsibility— grinds on in search of someone to blame for The Great Ottawa Parking Problem, it might be instructive to divert our attention away from duelling police forces and shirking Ottawa politicians.
Perhaps, as Rex Murphy suggested this week’, we should go to first principles. To wit, why did a prime minister who loves a photo op the way Cardi B. loves a twerk not at least attempt a public meeting with the leaders of the Convoy?
No one is suggesting he go all craven the way he did with BLM and Indigenous leaders, taking a knee or wearing a head dress (though he might have liked to play dress-up in a sleeveless leather vest.) He could have dramatically refused to accede to their demands. The CBC, CTV and Global cameras would have recorded every juicy moment for endless regurgitation on their news programs. Perfect.
Instead Justin chose to go all Bruno Ganz , retiring to a bunker to issue demeaning statements about the low estate of the protesters and their proximity to Nazis and white supremacists. To cover his retreat CBC host Nil Kuksal— who still has a job— helpfully suggested maybe Putin was behind the protest. (Maybe Poutine, Nil, but not Putin.)
While he couldn’t get to the Residential School cemeteries fast enough in 2021, Justin dodged the Hill, claimed he had the virus and let events spiral out of control among Ottawa’s mayor and police, the OPP, and the RCMP. His deep-secret undercover act worked like a charm on the Canadian media. None identified that not meeting with the Convoy— hardening the resistance— as the turning point. Instead they picked up on his fallacious claim that over half the funds supporting the Truckers came from outside Canada, fuelling their dark-web fantasies.
And as we wrote on Feb. 24, they also made the story about themselves. “While the stalemate dragged on, heart-wrenching stories of reporters scorned and told to “get lost” dominated the feed of the Media Party. One Radio-Canada stalwart was actually shoved live on-air. Gasp… It was poignant to hear how people supported by government handouts bravely did the jobs reporters have done for ages without complaint. They were the stars of their coverage, and we were going to hear about it.”
It was at this point in the protest that the comparison between the cringing son and his beloved Papa came into stark relief. Canadians of a certain age could well remember that, while his colleagues scattered, Pierre Trudeau stood up to the projectiles of Quebec separatists as he waited on the reviewing stand for the 1968 St. Jean Baptiste parade. That bit of theatre won him 15 years in the PMO.
(The only thing giving his son 15 years in office won’t be the hostility of a Convoy, but the loving embrace of Jagmeet Singh’s NDP.)
Back to Trudeau père et fils. As we know now, Justin did appropriate one of his Papa’s stratagems. Having declined to govern from the front, he invoked the War Measures Act, now helpfully renamed the Emergency Measures Act. To do so he cited truckers (brandishing Quebec fleur de lys BTW) pissing on the National Cenotaph, Nazi and Confederate flags, hassling civil servants for wearing masks and incidents of violence that proved totally fabricated. And those damn honking trucks.
Trudeau also pressured GoFundMe and other crowd-funding outlets into refusing to allow accounts to support the truckers. Then he sent in the police to rough up the truckers and seize the bank accounts of the organizers. (In the words of Liberal MP Mark Gerretson the police beatings were the “gold standard”.)
The pesky New York Times broke the spell, reporting that police had advanced with guns drawn. Immediately, CBC grandee Carol Off denounced the Times’ story. Then video appeared showing—oops— a squad of cops arresting a man in a van at gunpoint. The Times then lectured their “see no evil” junior cousins on how to cover a riot. How embarrassing.
Was it justified? At least his father had kidnappings, murder and a recent history of bombings to fall back on when he strong-armed the War Measures Act in 1970. As Steve Paikin relates in his thorough upcoming bio of former PM John Turner, Trudeau was asked by the Quebec National Assembly to act. Despite misgivings within his own party and the bold dissent of David Lewis’ NDP, the Act was proclaimed by PET.
Trudeau also took the opportunity of armed Canadian soldiers on the street to lock up anyone who’d indicated separatist sympathies in the past, creating a bitterness that eventually led to René Levêsque’s Parti Quebecois wining election in 1976.
The dramatic move seemed justified two days later when the body of Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte was found in a car at St. Hubert airport, and when kidnappers holding British consul James Cross threatened to kill him if they weren’t allowed free passage to Cuba. In the end, Cross was freed, the murderers were flown to Cuba and Trudeau was re-elected (soon to visit Castro’s Cuba himself) .
Still, doubts lingered about how big a threat the FLQ had been; it turned out there were maybe 10 people involved in the kidnappings. Turner, who died in 2020, did note that he hoped Canadians would eventually see the crucial evidence upon which the harsh declaration was made. “Until that day cones, Canadians will not be able to fully appraise the course of action which has been taken by the government.” Canadians are still waiting, Paikin writes, as the evidence remains hidden.
That’s a brazen stunt Justin can get with. Bury the evidence. Maybe in a Rez school cemetery. What he couldn’t bury was the international scorn for his overreach and his weasel disappearance. Here’s the Financial Times, the voice of British business, on the faux-Emergency act. “The measures are designed to respond to insurrection, espionage and genuine threats to the Canadian Constitution rather than peaceful protest, no matter how irritating and inconvenient,”
Here’s the NY Times shooting holes in the media’s demonizing of the truckers’ behaviour: “They have a right to be noisy and even disruptive. Protests are a necessary form of expression in a democratic society, particularly for those whose opinions do not command broad popular support.” Here’s the Wall Street Journal on Trudeau’s enormous gaffe imposing martial law. Here’s Piers Morgan on Trudeau’s strategy that went unchallenged in his purchased media.
You get the picture. Which puts you one step ahead of the PM and his purchased media pals. To them, “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft YearsIn NHL History, , his new book with his son Evan, was voted the eighth best professional hockey book of by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted seventh best, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
“I think our reverence for the truth might have become a bit of a distraction that is preventing us from finding consensus and getting important things done.” Katherine Maher (NPR CEO)
If Ms. Maher finds the new Donald Trump autocracy uncomfortable, fact-wise, she should apply to replace magenta-haired Catherine Tait as CEO and president of CBC. Ratings? Deficits? A pish-posh distraction. She’d fit right in.
In the wake of the Nov. 5 election, Justin Trudeau’s diehards draw strength from a leader who also eschews reality. He rejects financial accounts in favour of an accounting of the heart. In his attempt at “finding consensus and getting important things done” Canada’s 23rd PM continues to assure Canadians that he will resist the dread Trump agenda by employing not policy but his tantric approach to governance. One where he is the yogi and Canada is the one getting penetrated.
With an unassailable mandate for at least two years Trump has momentum. As seen by the dramatic Trump cabinet appointees, this divine mission will be sorely tested as The Donald loads up his tariff wagon and demands that the freeloader on America’s back pay its share to NATO. And prepare to accept a northward flood of undesirable immigrants.
Trump’s new border czar Thomas Homan has clearly identified Canada’s border weakness. Fear not, says Mr. minus-38 percent approval in polling. Our hearts are pure and our motives unquestioned. Sure. You go with that. (Ontario premier Doug Ford isn’t waiting for Trudeau to smell the Trumpian coffee. He’s warning Mexico about its trade deficiencies, threatening to kick them out of the free trade deal.)
Like America’s ruling class before the 2024 election, Canada’s brahmins are blithely unaware they are being fitted for a rope in 2025. Confident they know best, they issue columns that declare that the public sometimes gets it wrong in elections (ignoring the culpability for Joe Biden). They faint in the face of Elon Musk making X into a dominant political force. They assume the public is still listening.
The result down south couldn’t possibly be replicated here, because Canada has a ruling class of the first order. And a media paid to repeat that claim. That’s what Americans thought, says Mark Steyn. “The first problem with America’s ruling class: they don’t live where you live; they don’t even want to visit where you live; they have no desire to set foot where you live. And, in consequence, they know nothing.”
The same can be said for Canada’s know-it-alls. They don’t live where you live. They don’t want to live in Brandon or Cornerbrook. They have no desire to set foot in Sturgeon Falls or Fort St. John. The only real places they see are out the car window as they speed away to their cottage in the Laurentians or Muskoka. Ergo, they know nothing worth knowing.
But they know who you are. They clean your homes. They serve you in restaurants. They drive your Ubers. They laugh at your vanities. But the Laurentian elites remain unaware. As a consequence they can say, like Space Cadet No. 1 Melanie Joly, “our border is extremely effective and extremely well guarded” when the U.S. ambassador to Canada warns that the millions of anticipated deportees need to get out of America. Has Joly seen the Portal crossing into Saskatchewan? The St. Stephen-Calais crossing in NB? Fortress Canada couldn’t repel a determined surge of 50 illegals, let alone 500 or 5000, fleeing deportation in the U.S.
And still the balm of Liberal confidence buoys Canada’s upper middle class. They happily ingest the most ludicrous unctions from their government about Trump. Even as their CNN and MSNBC voices are discredited they believe. As we wrote recently, over 50 percent of Americans saw through Kamala Harris and the DEMs coup narratives as complete bushwah. Probably 90 percent of Canadians, however, still lap up these narratives of competent governance.
Their biggest fear remains that the populist revolt against authority in the U.S. might threaten Canada’s faculty lounge cabinet. As we wrote the Chinese spying allegations are typical of the decaying media’s water carrying for the elites. “No one drawing a Liberal support cheque worries aloud that Trudeau knows the truth contained in this files, that it’s injurious to him and the NDP, that Canadians need to know the names of MPs and senators taking bribes, why a police request sat on a minister’s desk for 54 days unopened.
It’s Poilievre/ Trump who’s untrustworthy. It’s a strategy that the Libs and NDP pray Poilievre will fall for. Pierre’s sin is he doesn’t believe the public should depend on government for everything. That’s heresy in Canada’s Family Compact, and so the Trump comparisons”.
This was how the U.S. Left acted till Nov. 5. Now, the pendulum there is swinging against the administrative state apologists in the U.S. Earlier this month, Boeing’s newly installed CEO, Kelly Ortberg, quietly dismantled the DEI department and accepted the resignation of the office’s vice president. Canada thinks it can still resist this correction with kind hearts and coronets.
A typical example of denial was on Toronto radio this week on which a food shelter advocate and the host discussed the sky-rocketing demand for food hampers in the GTA. They postulated various ideas why this is so. No doubts they were sincere. But in the entire seven-minute segment no one suggested that the Liberals’ mass importation of millions into the city the past five years might have had some impact on these services.
You get the government you deserve. And, as a consequence, you get media you deserve. People like Maher who echo Trudeau’s reverence for China’s ability to get things done outside the democratic sphere. And climate loons who excuse China’s unregulated belching stacks as being under control due to Western examples of carbon pricing and higher taxes.
Perhaps when Trudeau is finally pensioned off by Poilievre we will see some of his still-in-denial women folks, enraged by Little Trump’s victory, adopt the protest tactics of 4B, a South Korean feminist movement in which women swear off dating, mating with, and marrying men. Then we will see if anyone notices that they’ve left the grid. Here’s betting we don’t.
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, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. 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 hasn’t been the greatest month for Wayne Gretzky. One one hand he has a Putin pal, Alex Ovechkin, systematically stalking his record for the most regular-season goals in an NHL career. After a slow start The Great Eight is now tracking Wayne like Carey Price tracking a mule deer (more on that later). When this is over he could have only 60 NHL records left!
On the other hand, his secret about supporting Donald Trump got out in the wake of Orange Man Bad re-possessing the White House. Yes, Gretz is a MAGA man, right down to the hat. While his son-in-law, LIV golfer Dustin Johnson, tees it up regularly with The Donald (they’re neighbours in the Palm Beaches) most of the hockey sweats were unaware that No. 99 votes for Trump. (In Wayne’s defence he votes GOP in the Hollywood congressional district which is like using a hair blower to melt the Columba Ice Field.)
Then, after Trump’s stunning (to some) win on Tuesday, pictures emerged on the Great One with his family at Mar A Lago celebrating the win. Janet Gretzky cooed, “Congratulations Mr. President Donald J Trump ♥️🤍💙🇺🇸 You did it, You deserved it, you earned every bit of it. The world is a better place to have you as our Leader. Proud to be an American. Thank you for being such a great friend . May God keep watching over you ♥️🙏🏻♥️ Love our family to yours !”
The secret (to some) was out. Then hero of the Great White North, which has elected Justin Trudeau three times, melted down. Like this. “People should burn all their old hockey jersey and cards of this guy. A shame”. And those were the nice ones.
University of Alberta professor Robert Summers @RJSCity: “He’s been a pretty unlikable guy for a long time, this just further solidifies it. He was an amazing hockey player.” @ktownkeith: “Gretzky is disgusting and pathetic. I will celebrate when Ovechkin breaks his record. Also FYI, Mario was the best hockey player ever, not Whine Gretzky.”
Dave MacIntyre @dave_macattack: “Wayne Gretzky being at Cheeto’s inauguration party is disappointing in ways I can’t properly express in a tweet. And no, I don’t care that hockey culture is conservative. Being fiercely opposed to a fascist dictator should be the absolute floor for anyone with a conscience….He ain’t the GOAT for me anymore.”
“Not sure this guy is the Canadian icon and encapsulation of Canadian values that many think he is. The first red flag was his very partisan support for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives starting in the mid-2000s. No thanks, Wayne!”
Globe & Mail columnist Andrew Coyne, who was on an 0-50 heater during the election weighed in. @acoyne: “I have no problem with Gretzky being a conservative. I do have a problem with him hanging with Trump. Who, for starters, is not a conservative.”
There were some who defended him. My pal Ted Bird chirped back. @manofbird: “The pissants complaining about Wayne Gretzky attending Trump’s victory party are the same people who would’ve snitched on their own kids for playing road hockey during COVID.”
But it’s safe to say that as Canada prepares to defenestrate Trudeau in the next federal election, Gretz will not be invited to Rideau Hall for beaver tails with Justin. It’s likely he’ll experience the Bobby Orr blackout, becoming a non-person in Canada for getting too close to Trump.
In Orr’s case it was his published endorsement of Trump’s losing 2020 campaign that led to the shade being drawn over the greatest defenceman (IMO player) ever. “He’s the kind of teammate I want”.
Much like the Gretzky tsunami of condemnation, Orr took it in the cup, especially in liberal New England where he made his bones. “Not that Bobby Orr will care, but his endorsement of Donald Trump is one of the most disappointing things I’ve ever read in my life. I guess all I can say is that he seems to have a weak spot for conmen/future convicted criminals.”
In Canada it was no better for Orr. Here was Vancouver columnist Daniel Wagner: “In other words, Orr faces no harm from a Trump administration and is likely insulated from the harm that others have experienced. That doesn’t excuse his endorsement, but goes a long way towards explaining it.” In the Hockey News Ken Campbell tied Orr to the Jan. 6 riots. “Bobby Orr Was Part of the Problem. Now He Can Be Part of the Solution”.
In our column of Nov. 8, 2020, we pointed the wee hypocrisy of the liberal-left press box. “Just weeks after giving LeBron James’ political activism a tongue bath, the Globe & Mail sent in the goons for Orr. “Neither Bobby Orr nor any other athletes should be leading the political conversation” thundered Cathal Kelly.
Sure. Leave it to us. Other Canadian sports media called Trump a “monster”, a “racist” and “a totalitarian”. You could heat most of the GTA with the steam emitted by their indignation at Orr having the temerity to speak out. Others swore to sell off their precious Orr memorabilia as if Orr had been accused of throwing a Stanley Cup Final.”
A bitter Orr has taken a low profile since as even some in his hometown of Parry Sound wants nothing to do with him. “Poor Parry Sound,” tweeted Mary Lou George on Oct. 31, 2020. “What a disgrace #BobbyOrr has turned out to be. Guess he believes bragging about assaulting women really is just locker room talk since he wants Trump on his team. Sad.”
Longtime fans in Parry Sound dumped on him. “I just assumed that he was a good guy. Honestly it was heartbreaking for me to learn this about him. It just shattered my impression – I guess it was an illusion – it just shattered it… It kind of now, makes me rethink a lot of my hockey heroes … it’s just disappointing.”
The message is that in progressive Canada it doesn’t pay for even the greatest hockey heroes to diverge from their Trudeaupian orthodoxy. As Canadiens star goalie Carey Price learned when he dared to disagree with Trudeau’s plans to seize guns.
“I love my family, I love my country, and I care for my neighbour,” Price wrote in a published post. “I am not a criminal or a threat to society. What @justinpjtrudeau is trying to do is unjust… Thank you for listening to my opinion.”
We commiserated with him in our column at the time. “Good luck with that, Carey. Coming in the week when Quebec commemorates the 2014 École Polytechnique massacre, the political message backfired. Quebec’s media exploded against the man who was so recently their hero. Price tried to clarify his stand.
“My views are my own, and I do believe in them,” he tweeted. “The only reason I bring up this issue is because it is what’s being brought up now and not out of disrespect to anyone.” That brought the Habs belatedly to protect him. “Carey was not aware of the unfortunate timing on his statement. The Montreal Canadiens wish to express their sincere apology to any and all who have been offended or upset by the discourse that has arisen over this matter in recent days.”
But the message is clear. Whether you’re Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr or Carey Price, Canada’s Woke chorus will not abide insubordination to their cause. That includes much of the media. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men , they can’t handle the truth. So shut up and pass the puck.
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, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. 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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