“Guys, can we cut it out? Donald Trump is not an idiot… Donald Trump is smarter than me, you, and all the critics… this dude is a phenomenal—he is the most powerful human on earth.”— Van Jones, CNN liberal/ Trump hater

While hockey is nominally the national sport of Canada, a good case can be made that sneering at America is a close second. Mocking the foibles of the neighbours to the South as a means of propping up the junior partner’s self esteem has long been a feature of Canadian life. The Excited States etc.

Donald Trump took the condescension to stratospheric levels. So strong is the mockery of modern-day Laurentian popinjays that a 51st state jibe from Trump spun an entire election on its head. How bad were Liberal fortunes? Many of Trudeau’s allies and groomsmen announced they were not pursuing re-election. Depending on who’s counting votes now, fussy banker Mark Carney could have a voting majority in Parliament after the Trudeau Liberals trailed by as many as 20 points in the 2024 polls.

The manipulated Carney hustle advertising Change! was a carbon copy of the backroom Democrats attempts to nurse a mentally incapacitated Joe Biden through the 2024 elections then spring VP Kamala Harris as the first female president. When Biden imploded while debating Trump the shadowy DEMs behind Biden accelerated the Kamala script. Despite the frantic efforts of their media/ pollsters Harris flopped and Trump resumed the presidency in a lopsided win. Average Americans were not fooled.

By now the questionable sequence of events in Canada that brought Carney in from the bullpen to clean up for Trudeau is well known— and highly mockable in its own right. The proroguing of Parliament, the rigging of the Liberal leadership race by DQ-ing candidates, the hermetically sealed Carney resume, a very short campaign, the Elbows Up Mike Myers TV spots, the vow to match tariffs and so on. It was a cavalcade of corruption.

All of this Canada First! was accepted by gullible Boomers and smothered by the purchased media. Advertisers jumped in with patriotic beer ads. Trudeau’s postmodern state was more like Laurier’s Canada rallying to fight the Bosch in 1915. The extent of this deception can now be seen with the benefit of time. Carney’s accession was a carefully controlled script in which Carney rescinded tariffs during the campaign without telling voters. He declared that America was no longer Canada’s No. 1 partner then begged to be let in on the proposed Golden Dome defence shield. He revived the most controversial Trudeau era cabinet members. He joined GB and France in demanding Israel go easy on Hamas.

And when the economy started tanking he blamed Pierre Poilievre for failing the nation. What voters now can see is that the last election was about Boomers, the Liberals last line of acquiescence. Myers’ nostalgia was about saving the equity in Boomers’ cash-box homes so that the government could then tell those using their homes as equity that as a trade off, they will now tax the equity in their primary residence.

The great thing about being a Canadian Liberal is you can make every mistake in the book– and a few not in the book– and CDN. voters will still forgive it all if you show them a movie star. For all the mocking they receive from Canada, American voters saw through the Biden farce and said “Enough”. Canadian voters saw the same grift and said “More Please”. How do you take a nation like that seriously?

For those Canadians in media who regularly make fun of the Americans’ bravado and noise there has been no awareness of how Canadians had been played like a cheap violin. Okay, Andrew Coyne finally admitted voters were conned. But most settled back into a deep sleep, free from Chinese fentanyl, money laundering by the big banks and the plight of their kids and grandkids.

Nice work if you can get it. Mark Carney got it, and his Boomers ca now swallow deep.

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, Bruce is regular media contributor. The new book from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin is 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. In paperback and Kindle on #Amazon. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/

Dublin: for those who’ve travelled to Ireland the past 50 years the transition is stunning. Even from ten years ago, when the previous market dip hit the nation, the current iteration is remarkable. For a nation that has historical sites dating from 5000 BC to the present, the claim that these are Ireland’s finest days is plausible.

From Dublin to the rocky outcrops of the Wild Atlantic West, the nation is teeming with people and energy. It’s not even the tourist season yet, but lineups to see Kilmainham Gaol or Blarney Castle or the Titanic Experience are lengthy. In Dublin the streets are positively jammed with locals (many young), tourists and a swath of nationalities from places most Irish can’t locate on a map.

No matter where they’re from they carry the same craic that has made Ireland a joyous place to wile away a day chatting locals. Humour and help are the watchwords. Our Uber drive was a Romanian who’s been in Dublin 35 years, and he chatted our ears off  in his Romanian/ Irish accent en route to the airport. As our Uber driver noted, there’s plenty of work and lots of opportunity.

The old docklands along the Liffey have been ripped up to produce modern office complexes, hotels and arenas that seem more like Geneva than Dublin. Traditional double-deckers still ply the streets, but they share the road with a modern streetcar system. Irish food— so long demeaned as inedible— is now the toast of the gastro world. The NFL plays at the modern Aviva Stadium, and the music scene is flourishing in clubs and stages around this city founded by the Gaels in the 7th century.

The remainder of Ireland is no less impressive. A modern highway network now gets you from Dublin to Galway in two hours and Cork in two-and-a-half hours. Yes, the narrow lane ways and paths that criss-cross the greenery are still quaint. But transportation is not the trial it once was. E-charging stations are omnipresent.

Which leads one to wonder how was the conversion achieved. Ireland is famous for its ability to back losers in politics. From their own nationalists, who ended up at the end of a rope or in front of a firing squad, to the imperial powers— France, Spain, Germany— they hoped would save them from England, Ireland has a bloody past. Its own independent movement launched on Easter weekend in 1916 required a cruel civil war (see Michael Collins) and an equally nasty partition to finally create the Irish Free State.

One benefit of all this self-imposed pain has been Ireland’s withdrawal from most of the 20th century’s carnage. Where a town square in England, Canada or Australia would honour the copious dead from WW I or WW II, in Ireland the town square honours Padraig Pearse, John McBride, James Connolly or Thomas Clarke. With no European wars to prosecute Irish cities were not bombed and their downtowns resemble themselves from centuries ago.

But still you may wonder where has the money come from to spark this turnabout? Well, Ireland stayed with the EU when England voted for Brexit, and the benefits are easy to see. Where there were few or no jobs 25 years ago, the EU has showered Ireland with investment money. It has enabled Ireland to offer lucrative tax deals to multinationals to move to the Emerald Isle. The results are palpable.

The price is less so. And in Ireland one can see a warning for Mark Carney’s Canada. The new PM is a dedicated Europhile. Carney has made no secret of his longing to cut deals with the boys from Brussels. He told Canadians that the traditional relationship with the U.S. was over, and while that was crass electioneering, no one expects him to abandon the values of the EU.

While there will be manna from the EU (should it stay solvent) there will also be a quid pro quo. Canadians who blissfully voted for Carney should realize that means doubling down on the climate extremes of carbon taxes and failed new tech that currently hobble the EU.

As Ireland has learned, in exchange for its money the EU wants you to also accept its gender dysphoria and a brand of immigration politics that sees Ireland today embracing Hamas and the most virulent brand of anti-semitic groups while seeking to silence its former sports hero Conor McGregor when he talks of losing Irish culture to an immigrant wave who neither care nor endorse traditional Irish culture. .

It also means adherence to the censorship regimes of the EU where Germany plans to silence its most popular party, the AFD, for heresies against the new religion of Climate/ Culture. Irish politics is radical, and a Canada that fits itself under the EU influence will find not just a continuation but an extension of the Justin Trudeau disastrous regime. Which will keep Alberta in conflict with the Ottawa mandarins.

So do visit Ireland. The people are wonderful, the land is stunning and the energy is palpable. When you leave bring your memories home with you. But leave Irish/ EU politics behind.

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.