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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

 

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

The Game That Let Canadians Forgive The Liberals — Again

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With the Americans winning the first game 3-1, a sense of panic crept over Canada as it headed to Game 2 in Boston. Losing a political battle with Trump was bad enough, but losing hockey bragging rights heading into a federal election was catastrophic for the Family Compact.

“It’s also more political than the (1972) Summit Series was, because Canada’s existence wasn’t on the line then, and it may be now. You’re damn right Canadians should boo the (U.S.) anthem.” Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur before Gm. 1 of USA/ Canada in The 4 Nations Cup.

The year 2025 is barely half over on Canada Day. There is much to go before we start assembling Best Of Lists for the year. But as Palestinian flags duel with the Maple Leaf for prominence on the 158th anniversary of Canada’s becoming a sovereign country it’s a fair guess that we will settle on Febuary 21 as the pivotal date of the year— and Canada’s destiny as well.

That was the date of Game 2 in the U.S./Canada rivalry at the Four Nations Tournament. Ostensibly created by the NHL to replace the moribund All Star format, the showdown of hockey nations in Boston became much more. Jolted by non-sports factors it became a pivotal moment in modern Canadian history.

Set against U.S. president Donald Trump’s bellicose talk of Canada as a U.S. state and the Mike Myers/ Mark Carney Elbows Up ad campaign, the gold-medal game evoked, for those of a certain age, memories of the famous 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR. And somehow produced an unprecedented political reversal in Canadian elections.

As we wrote on Feb. 16 after Gm. 1 in Montreal, the Four Nations had been meant to be something far less incendiary.  “Expecting a guys’ weekend like the concurrent NBA All Star game, the fraternal folks instead got a Pier Six brawl. It was the most stunning beginning to a game most could remember in 50 years. (Not least of all the rabid Canadian fanbase urging patriotism in the home of Quebec separation) Considering this Four Nations event was the NHL’s idea to replace the tame midseason All Star Game where players apologize for bumping into each other during a casual skate, the tumult as referees tried to start the game was shocking.

“Despite public calls for mutual respect, the sustained booing of the American national anthem and the Team Canada invocation by MMA legend Georges St. Pierre was answered by the Tkachuck brothers, Matthew and Brady, with a series of fights in the first nine seconds of the game. Three fights to be exact ,when former Canuck J.T. Miller squared up with Brandon Hagel. (All three U.S. players have either played on or now play for Canadian NHL teams.)  

“Premeditated and nasty. To say nothing of the vicious mugging of Canada’s legend Sidney Crosby behind the U.S. net moments later by Charlie McEvoy.”

With the Americans winning the game 3-1 on Feb. 15, a sense of panic crept over Canada as it headed to Game 2 in Boston. Losing a political battle with Trump was bad enough, but losing hockey bragging rights heading into a federal election was catastrophic for the Family Compact. As we wrote in the aftermath, a slaughter was avoided.

“In the rematch for a title created just weeks before by the NHL the boys stuck to hockey. Anthem booing was restrained. Outside of an ill-advised appearance by Wayne Gretzky— now loathed for his Trump support— the emphasis was on skill. Playing largely without injured Matthew and Brady Tkachuk and McAvoy, the U.S. forced the game to OT where beleaguered goalie Craig Binnington held Canada in the game until Connor McDavid scored the game winner. “

The stunning turnaround in the series produced a similar turnaround in the Canadian federal election. Galvanized by Trump’s 51st State disrespect and exhilarated by the hockey team’s comeback, voters switched their votes in huge numbers to Carney, ignoring the abysmal record of the Liberals and their pathetic polling. From Pierre Poilievre having a 20-point lead in polls, hockey-besotted Canada flipped to award Carney a near-majority in the April 28 election.

The result stunned the Canadian political class and international critics who questioned how a single sporting event could have miraculously rescued the Liberals from themselves in such a short time.

While Canada soared because of the four Nations, a Canadian icon crashed to earth. “Perhaps the most public outcome was the now-demonization of Gretzky in Canada. Just as they had with Bobby Orr, another Canadian superstar living in America, Canadians wiped their hands of No. 99 over politics. Despite appeals from Orr, Don Cherry and others, the chance to make Gretzky a Trump proxy was too tempting.

We have been in several arguments on the subject among friends: Does Gretzky owe Canada something after carrying its hockey burden for so long? Could he have worn a Team Canada jersey? Shouldn’t he have made a statement that he backs Canada in its showdown with Trump? For now 99 is 0 in his homeland.”

Even now, months later, the events of late February have an air of disbelief around them, a shift so dramatic and so impactful on the nation that many still shake their heads. Sure, hockey wasn’t the device that blew up Canada’s politics. But it was the fuse that created a crater in the country.

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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Bruce Dowbiggin

Don & Rick: Canadian Icons, Mixed Messages, Lasting Impacts

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“Well, Tim, this is our last show. . . . Thanks everybody for listening and toodaloo,” 91-year old Don Cherry allegedly on his final podcast episode.

Once upon a time in a public broadcaster far, far away there was an identity crisis. Who should we be as we enter the 21st century? We depend on government for our financing, but our audience relies on people who hate government.

At CBC that argument could be summed up by two figures on the TV network. Rick Mercer. Don Cherry. Both were brilliant communicators, masters of the craft of holding eyeballs. But they represented diametrically opposed audiences. Mercer was the glib political voice of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Cherry was the bombastic voice of Hockey Night in Canada, as Canadian as the brown beer stubby.

Mercer was worshipped by the folks in the C suite and liberal media. With his searing walking shots he lanced egos and asked uncomfortable questions. He called out sacred cows. Yet there was never any doubt in CBC’s upper reaches about whose side he was on in the culture war at CBC. He was safe.

Cherry was the unpredictable occupant of Coach’s Corner, the bombastic voice of white anglo hockey culture. He was abrasive and unforgiving. His first-period rants beside his Topo Gigio Ron Maclean were must-watch for the demographic. They also, it seemed, constituted must watching for his critics.

[Confession: I was one of his critics, paid to be so. We tangled often over his act. He ripped me in the 2004 NHL playoffs, alleging I said he was insincere about kids with cancer. During the infamous 1987 World Junior brawl he said I was a coward who wouldn’t defend his own kids in a fight. etc. He sicced his bots on me. While I disagreed with much of what he said, I defended his right to say such things. My beef was mostly with HNIC which refused to allow any dissent to Cherry’s act on the show . It was a noisy one-note symphony.

Don was durable, holding his prime position for decades, putting himself above the title many Saturdays with headline material. In the sea of pearl clutchers at CBC he stood out. While the suits above recoiled at his Canadian Legion catechism, they also knew he was an asset they could play when they went for funding in Ottawa. “See, we have all sorts of political views on the network.”

When CBC lost its HNIC franchise to Sportsnet Cherry became someone else’s problem. Eventually the Woke folk at Rogers tired of telling him to knock off the politics and cultural stuff. He was let go in 2019 for saying what he’d always said. Maclean then put in the knife to save his own hide.

Mercer’s highly rated act continued unabated till 2018. One of his most popular gigs— the one most likely to appeal to posh Canadians— was talking to Americans about Canada. It was brilliant in its simplicity. Go to famous colleges and universities to plumb the depths of their Canadian knowledge. Likewise, buttonhole well-known American politicians.

The topics were many and ridiculous. Should Canada protect the famous location Joe Clark’s Hole? What should Canada do about its melting national igloo? Could they congratulate Jean Chretien on a rare political feat called a “Double Double” in which he received support from both sides of the Canadian parliament.

He asked Al Gore about Canada moving the capital city from Kingston, Ontario to Toronto (Gore thought it smart). He convinced tourists at Mount Rushmore that the mineral rights to the mountain had been sold to a Canadian firm that was getting ready to drill for oil in Lincoln’s forehead.

He asked Americans to condemn Canada’s practice of euthanizing senior citizens by setting them adrift on Northern ice floes. In a famous moment, future President George W. Bush failed to correct Mercer when he referred to Chrétien as “Jean Poutine”

Mercer always said he didn’t think Americans were ignorant. Eighty percent had the right responses and those never made it to air. For the rest it was just that they couldn’t resist an open mike and having a take on things they knew nothing about. He had affection for them.

For Canada’s Left, insecure in its northern faculty-lounge, that subtlety was lost. Mercer’s routines reinforced a smug anti-American attitude in the Liberals and NDP base. All they saw was a nation of nitwits. “Look, what bozos!” The orientation of the fashionistas turned away from the U.S. to supposed European sophistication and societal controls for climate, population growth and Covid. Hello, Mark Carney.

This bias was reinforced by the increasingly self-loathing voices on the cable news of the American Left. Every GOP figure from George W. Bush till Trump today became  a comic character. Canadian lefties adored it. As we’ve written often the snide attitude allowed Canadians to ignore that Americans were protecting them for free and keeping them rich.  And taking the overflow from Canadian’s prized healthcare system.

This arrogance culminated in the March election where the mere mention of Trump sent Canadians fleeing back to a Liberal administration that was moribund after a decade of incompetence. It has an echo in Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame again declining to award Cherry the Foster Hewitt award as a legendary TV journalist. Love him or hate him he’s earned it. It’s arguable whether the aging Cherry will even be around to be chosen next year.

For sure his political impact will resonate for long after he’s gone in the populist resurgence in western Canada and elsewhere. If only Rick Mercer were allowed back on CBC to cover it.

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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