Bruce Dowbiggin
Grave Mistake: Blame The Trudeaus, Not Sir John A.
Pop Quiz: Since the 2021 Residential schools “secret burials” hysteria allowed prime minister Justin Trudeau to declare Canada a genocidal state, how many of the graves in question have been exhumed? Examined, even, to judge the merits of the wild claims?
The answer to that would appear to be zero. Because they know what will be found. “There is no recorded case of any indigenous parent claiming that their child had disappeared after being enrolled in a residential school. Not one police report, or historical records, of any of these tales from the crypt ever occurring,” writes Brian Giesbrecht.
Which didn’t prevent Trudeau’s grotesque teddy-bear photo op in a former residential cemetery. Nor his lowering of the Canadian flag for months to draw attention to murders and abuse he has never proved—or even bothered to prove. Nor his libelling the nation he leads before the world community. (Nor firing the first Indigenous Justice Minister, Jodie Wilson Raybould, for trying to protect justice from the political needs of the PMO.)
While the federal government, in a spasm of settler guilt, set aside $320 million to indigenous nations to find more evidence of a horrific crime, the dead remain undisturbed in their graves. If only we could say the same for the truth over allegations that went across the globe about the church-run residential schools.
These “truths” are behind the recent hounding of former Mount Royal University professor Frances Widdowson at University of Lethbridge over her claims that most, in not all, the allegations of priests murdering residential kids or being used for sado-masochistic purposes had no basis in fact. Widdowson lost her job for questioning the Trudeau catechism of white guilt on the Prairies.
Widdowson is one of the people Indigenous Affairs Minister Marc Miller described as “ghouls” for pointing out that residential school indigenous children died of the diseases of the day— in particular tuberculosis. Even more children were dying of TB on the reserves where they came from. (As we pointed out here ) If residential schools had never existed these children would, sadly, still have died.
Widdowson is in good company. In the white-guilt frenzy unleashed by Trudeau many of the founding figures of the nation have been denounced, their statues toppled, their names removed from schools. None worse than Sir John A, Macdonald, the first prime minister of the nation. While radicals doused his image in fake blood, it is an uncomfortable truth that, had Macdonald not been a visionary about the nation and its Indian tribes, the Plains Indians would not exist today.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, poses for a selfie with an elder after receiving a ceremonial headdress while visiting the Tsuut’ina First Nation near Calgary, Alta., Friday, March 4, 2016.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
In a time of economic frugality Macdonald’s government paid the entire cost of inoculating the Plains population for TB, against which they had no immunity. It is no exaggeration to say that were it not for this policy there would be few or no Indigenous Plains peoples for Trudeau to use as political props.
As Giesbrecht explains here Macdonald was instrumental on a number of fronts that saved the population.“Canada’s Indians escaped the bloody fate of the American Indians and their Trail of Tears,” writes Giesbrecht. “Macdonald was justly proud of this accomplishment.”
While the U.S. Seventh Cavalry was hunting down its native population on horseback, Macdonald was concluding treaties that ended the bloody inter-tribe wars between Plains Indians in the West. He tossed the rotgut whiskey purveyors exploiting Indians south of the border. That guaranteed the natives safety from U.S. imperialism by extending the railway from coast to coast, installing the Crown, not Washington, as their partner in treaties. He also saved them from the starvation brought on from the extinction of the buffalo herds.
Most of all, Macdonald saw education, not genocide, as the saviour of natives in Canada. When the concept of building conventional day schools for them failed he proposed the idea of boarding schools where native children could be educated and, hopefully, become Christian. As Giesbrecht notes, “providing education to Indian children was a treaty obligation demanded by the Indians chiefs, and gratefully granted by the federal government. The numbered treaties included provisions that schools would be built on reserves if requested, and all of the chiefs made that request.”
Further, attendance at the schools was voluntary until about 1920. Under Macdonald parents had to agree to send their children. The government would accept the full cost of the program and the treatments of disease that so many of the children brought with them to the schools. For this and many other policies towards Indians the population of the Plains nations has increased at least tenfold since his time.
But Macdonald’s statue at Queens Park in Toronto must be boarded up to protect it from the radicals stoked by Trudeau’s alleged infamy.
Sadly, another pioneer of education in Canada was not so fortunate. Egerton Ryerson’s name was stricken from the eponymous university when the Reign of Error thugs decided that his participation in starting free live-in education for natives was tantamount to genocide. Despite the fact this proponent of free education for all died before residential schools were in practice, his statue in Toronto was toppled. Whatever happened at the schools after his death in 1884 cannot diminish his desire to educate the native peoples of Ontario and establish universal access to education in Canada.
Guess which Canadian political leader is not having his statue toppled, his likeness removed from schools and his reputation sullied? That would be Justin’s daddy Pierre Trudeau. As PM in 1968 he proposed in a white paper to eliminate native status and turn indigenous people into ordinary Canadians, thereby abrogating all the treaties they’d signed in good faith with the Crown.
With his fellow Liberal cabinet member (and later PM) Jean Chretien, Pierre Trudeau set back native rights by advocating for assimilation when what native leaders wanted was self government under the treaties they’d signed with the Crown. When forced to finally withdraw the white paper, PET petulantly said, “We’ll keep them in the ghetto as long as they want.” In 1973, the Canadian Supreme Court validated those treaties.
Oh, from 1969 until 1978, control and maintenance of residential schools was in the hands the federal government of Canada. The Liberal Party prime minister throughout this eleven-year period ? Pierre Trudeau. Funnily, his son has not made an issue of his father’s role in the bureaucratic mess by calling him a genocidal leader.” Wonder why?
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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. 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 http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
“Take out the papers and the trash, or you don’t get no spending cash.”
Whether you’re in the stock market or real estate the question of when to sell is paramount. When to dump a tanking investment or sell a house in a bad market is an art form. Hence the expression, Timing is everything.
For the incumbent governments in Canada and the U.S. the time has come to make that risky decision of when to fish or when to cut bait with their respective leaders.
In Canada the federal Liberals, still shacked up with the NDP in a common-law embrace, have been doing denial for an extended period since they used the Covid-19 lockdown to sneak out a minority government in 2021. As soon as voters awoke to the lockdown hoax they’d lived through— courtesy of Justin Trudeau— they began to abandon him as a marketable product.
With five years to procrastinate, however, they indulged their radical agenda of climate and culture rather than address how they might be re-elected with Trudeau and his Quebec-dominated cabinet. They blew black holes in Canada’s debt load. There was a PR strategy to label Pierre Poilievre as a mini-Trump. And to buy up the floundering legacy media sources before there 2025 vote.
But for the most part the Liberals still saw Happy Ways where the mainstream saw an intellectual lightweight tilting at every Woke windmill. Since 2021 the polls have shown a steady erosion to the point where they see a Conservative majority— maybe even super-majority— if an election were called today.
Now all governments get tired over time. The biggest complaint about Stephen Harper from the talking classes in 2015 was the sense of fatigue he projected to Canadians who want their PM to be a rock star. But the collapse in Trudeau’s support has come via other very serious underpinnings from corruption (Lavalin, ME Charity, Chinese influence) to entitlement (the Carbon Tax, deficit).
However you see these issues they have led to the point where Liberals, more than half of whom will lose in the next election, must decide if they want to go to Davy Jones locker on the HMCS Skippy. Many of them will qualify for federal pensions if they hold on to the bitter end with Trudeau in October of next year. So he has that assurance of support. But if he is punted by the party he resurrected in 2010, who will succeed him? The taint of Trudeau on his most loyal sycophants will disqualify anyone in cabinet from being taken seriously for the top job.
Outside the immediate junta, names like Mark Carney— former Bank of Canada head— and deposed justice minister Jody Wilson Raybould have been put forward. The problem for anyone aspiring to replace Trudeau is they will have to face his fanatical loyalists in the PMO who’ve slapped down any pretenders so far.
The most recent forlorn hope for Trudeau was that the Federal Budget might calm the waters. Running up the deficit to perilous numbers with a menu of profligate policies to slake the restless NDP was going to force Poilievre on the defensive. So were limp attacks such as this from Trudeau cabinet pal Marc Miller.
For a brief fortnight the polling seemed to stabilize. But now more recent polls show that Trudeau’s popularity bottom was not a bottom at all, just a transfer station en route to the Marianas Trench of politics. Leaving the question of who and when as the only measurables in the equation. How much runway does he deserves and how much his successor gets are the operative problems when Liberals spend the summer in their ridings.
Meanwhile Joe Biden’s faint hope of putting his opponent in jail before the November election has done nothing to move his polling. If anything the prosecution of Donald Trump as he runs against Biden in 2024 is seen as a distinctly underhanded tactic by many outside the MSNBC mouth breathers.
While polls are a mugs’ game, the news that Biden trails Trump in all seven of the swing states he needs to be re-elected has sent shock through Team Obama, which runs the Democratic Party at the moment. There are a lot of sinecures and cushy salaries at risk here. The addition of Robert Kennedy Jr. to the presidential ballot in key states like California is further diluting the DEMs base. While RFK Jr. draws from both parties it’s expected he’ll hurt Biden most.
As if that wasn’t enough the recent pro-Palestine occupations by students and paid agitators is seen as a referendum on Biden’s support for Israel among the fanatical left-wing base of the DEMs. And polls indicate the effect has been disastrous.
Unlike the Liberals who have time to effect a palace coup, the DEMs are up against the clock with their convention coming in July. While he still plays to the Hollywood and Wall Street donors, the general public sees Biden getting more decrepit by the day. His persona as a pleasantly dazed crossing guard has worn thin.
While replacement scenarios have dogged Biden since his election (saved only by the utter dislike for his VP Kamala Harris) the party pros are talking about one last pierce of theatre: letting Biden take the nomination in July, replace Harris with a star candidate like Michelle Obama or Tom Hanks and have Biden then take a knee for health reasons.
Let the untainted replacement take on Trump, who produces a puke-in-your-mouth reaction with half the American electorate. A squishy Obama/ Bill Clinton replacement could rout Trump in a debate and bring single white women and blacks/ latinos back home to the DEMs. Seems like a longshot?
This is the party that orchestrated at least four separate legal assaults on Trump, coincidentally in the year of the election. Don’t under-estimate their chicanery. And while they didn’t pay off the media as Trudeau has done, they don’t need to. They get the love for free.
Give them credit if they do, because doing nothing is a ticket to four years of The Don.
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. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/
Who knew when we tuned in Saturday night to Hockey Night In Canada that we would be witnessing playoff history. Nay, not just playoff history but hockey history. According to what we saw and heard on HNIC just ONE TEAM played on Saturday. And they lost. It goes without saying that the team was HNIC’s beloved Toronto Maple Leafs.
Those of us who’d stuck with the telecast all evening could’ve sworn there was another team on the ice in black and gold. Rumour has it they were the Boston Bruins, but don’t quote us on that. Also, take it as a rumour that Boston’s 3-1 win gave them a 3-1 lead in games over Toronto heading back to Boston for what most expect will be the coup de grace for the blue and white. Again.
But when time came to discuss the game afterward the Toronto-based panel told us that the Leafs had beaten themselves. Yes, in some hockey version of metaphysics Toronto had transcended the third dimension. The Bruins were like The Fugitive, lurking far out of sight. Brad Marchand had had nothing to do with breaking up Toronto’s neutral-zone speed nor Charlie McAvoy clearing the front of their net. Jeremy Swayman, who he?
Instead the talking heads dissected the loss in shades of blue.
For those who were washing their hair or another vital task on Saturday, the Leafs had more story lines than a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (insert your joke here), They finally got their migraine-afflicted star William Nylander back in the fold before a delirious Scotiabank crowd who’d probably paid about a $1000 a ticket to attend. But their star sniper Auston Matthews (allegedly) had food poisoning or a gall stone or a tee time next week back home in Scottsdale. Hard to say.
There was also a goaltending controversy, a Mitch Marner controversy and a Keith Pelley controversy (more on MLSE’s new CEO in a moment). And the, you know, 1967 thing. Despite the hysteria of their long-suffering fans at puck drop, postgame analysts hinted the Leafs seemed to be disinterested. Or, to those who actually watched the game, they were schooled by a better Boston team.
By the middle of the second period, despond and a 3-0 deficit had settled on the Leafs. Despite being the ONLY TEAM on the ice their well-compensated stars were bitching at each other on the bench. While Matthews looked glumly at his pals, Marner had a hissy fit throwing his gloves to the floor. Nylander lip-synched a rebuke to Marner along the lines of Grow up, this ain’t junior hockey. Did we say the crowd booed them off the ice after the second period? Yeah, that too.
Which led mild-mannered Kelly Hrudey to scold Marner for a bush-league behaviour in the break. Remember, Hrudey’s the nice guy on the HNIC panel. Where others see an alligator chomping on their leg Kelly sees a chance to get up-close with nature. So the rebuke for Marner was incendiary. By the time they dropped the pick for the third period you’d have thought Bob Cole wasn’t the only person to pass away this week. Gloom.
Making matters worse, Matthews was nowhere to be found. (According coach Keefe, the doctors had pulled him from the game. Whatever.) When the contest ended with a Toronto loss, the postgame chatter was once more obsessed with Toronto’s failings, as if another team were not having its way on the ice. Where was the effort? Where was the intensity promised when Leafs management spread dollars like Easter candy among its Core Four?
Kevin Bieksa, typically the most salty one on the panel, reminded everyone there was a Game 5 Monday and that 3-1 leads have been overcome. But with Toronto’s success in comebacks being nil he sounded like a guy trying to sell you a penny mining stock.
The dressing-room afterward was mint. “You know what, that’s just the way we are,” Nylander said. “I mean we expect a lot from each other, and we love each other.”
“I don’t think there’s any (frustration),” Marner added unconvincingly. “We’re grown men. We were talking about plays out there that we just want to make sure we’re all 100 percent on and know what we’re doing… We’re not yelling at each other because we hate each other.”
Chris Johnston of The Athletic called it the end of the Maple Leafs as we know them. “They’re making more mistakes at five-on-five, they’re soundly losing the special-teams battle, and they’ve transformed from being one of the NHL’s best offensive teams in the regular season to one that can’t score more than two goals per night in the playoffs. Wash, rinse, repeat.”
Coach Sheldon Keefe, whose shelf life has about 60 minutes left, was enigmatic in the face of cruel destiny. “You can question a lot of things; you can’t question the effort,” he said.
He’s right about one thing. When this first-round ends in ignominy there will be plenty of questions from Pelley, newly installed at the top of the MLSE pyramid. Such as, why should I keep this management team that teases Waygu beef in-season but delivers ground chuck in the playoffs? It’s long been said that the league the Leafs have been built for doesn’t exist in the postseason. So why keep pretending it does?
For those not in the know, Pelley has spent the last few years dealing with the Saudi’s LIV golf enterprise in his role as CEO of what used to be known as the European Tour. (Insert your barbarism reference) So he’s used to dealing with nasty situations.
Maybe his first act on the Leafs file is reminding everyone that two teams play each other in the playoffs, and it might be a good idea to learn from what the winners are doing.
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. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/
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