Bruce Dowbiggin
Cutting Remarks: The Scourge of Hate Speech Censors
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group… in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” Frédéric Bastiat
We take you now to a day in the not-too-distant future. Citizens are lined up at the registry office to renew their license to speak. Since governments weaponized speech and then criminalized words in the mid 2020s, citizens must register their speech the same way they register guns or cars.
For their convenience the government agencies provide a list of words or insinuations that qualify as criminal speech. Here’s a CBC guide to correct speech on climate, giving you the appropriate words to describe weather-as-the-Apocalypse. Don’t forget, every climate faux pas is a micro aggression!
Should you have made it through the previous 12 months without tripping the language laser beam you’ll be permitted to again speak publicly— albeit very carefully. Pretty soon everyone will speak like Uterus Man, also known as cisgendered NDP MLA Brooks Arcand-Paul, who talks as though his mouth was a Woke minefield.
Media outlets, too, will be required to renew their speech licenses or lose the annual slush-fund monies that come with government Good Speak. Here, Trudeau wind therapist Patty Hajdu demonstrates Good Speak, decrying the cyber-violence of Adolph Hitler… er, Pierre Poilievre… over a “reckless use of the pejorative ‘crazy’” to describe her cabinet colleague Stephane Guilbeault. PP’s “slander” was, she assured us, yet another page out of the infamous Donald Trump American playbook that will rule Canada if Patty & Friends lose the next election.
To keep your talk license you’ll need to speak more like Liberal MP Ken Hardie when he says damn the facts, let’s throw a little dirt over a multiple murder on the bad side of Winnipeg: “Might it be the anti-social ‘burn everything down’ far-right attitude we’re seeing creeping in from the U.S.? And the ‘creep’ on the Canadian side? Pierre Poilievre?” (The tone-deaf Liberal has since sorta’ backtracked after being buried on social media.)
If this all sounds absurd, you haven’t been paying attention. In Canada the government of Justin Trudeau is well on its way to creating an apparatus for regulating both public and private speech. The past week it announced that it was extending its grant money though 2029 to failing media outlets, up to about $30,000 per employee. Not to be outdone, Heritage Canada is putting $40,000 per journalist as a target to promote “diversity”. No wonder so many CDN media legends rushed to defend a hapless CP reporter who was verbally upbraided by Poillievre.
Hey, money is money. Who in the collapsed media empires is not going to like that, huh? Sure you’ll have to sing for your supper, but you’ll still have the cottage in the Muskokas or Kawartha Lakes to soothe any qualms about selling out your journalistic birthright.
Here’s former-progressive author and blogger Michael Shellenberger: “Liberal Left governments have sought to use every new crisis as an opportunity to scapegoat their political opponents and, when that stops working, demand censorship, since the legitimacy and continued existence of the liberal Left hegemony in the West comes from control over information.”
Speaking of U.S. politics, where Joe Biden is polling below herpes, his administration is setting up a disinformation bureau to help the average voter divine something as “information” (Biden policy) or “disinformation” (Trump policy). Stubbornly hanging on to un-truths about The Biden Family’s shakedown of foreign governments could land you in a jail next to the Jan. 6 traitors.
To goose public fear, Team Biden has a new series of Adolph Hitler… er, Donald Trump… revenge memes. From Bill Maher (“I’m afraid of him on a personal level” ) to former Obama spokes-bugle Jen Psaki, the ruling class is pumping the accelerator: “There is an old quote that goes, ‘For my friend everything. For my enemies the law.’ That is how Trump has operated and that is how he will continue to operate if ever given the levers of government again.” Irony alert.
Need More? Here . Here And here is a CDN fainting goat. (Clarification: DEMs jailed for political crimes or charged for same during Trump presidency: 0. Non-DEMs jailed for political crimes or accused of same during Biden presidency: more than 600, perhaps as many as a thousand.)
Rioting in Dublin
In Ireland, the recent riots over an immigrant stabbing five adults and children have inspired the EU puppets of Leo Valadkar’s government to suggest similar limits on speech must be codified after UFC star Connor MacGregor suggested that perhaps immigration was behind the anger of protesters. Here’s Taioseach fart catcher Pauline O’Connell: “If your views on other people’s identities go to make their lives unsafe, insecure, and cause them such deep discomfort that they cannot live in peace, then I believe that it is our job as legislators to restrict those freedoms for the common good.”
In Britain, the parsing of language has produced “UK police : We will no longer accept the statement ‘re-housing of illegal immigrants” as a hate crime.” Across the European Union, the “restrict those freedoms for the common good” drumbeat is the same, as quaking bureaucrats and entitled statists seek to silence their critics using hate-language laws that would make even Orwell blush. Result: In Germany, the right-wing AFD party is rising in the polls. In France, Marine Le Pen is more popular than Emmanuel Macron. The recent election of right-wing governments in Italy, the Netherlands and Brexit in Britain has only hastened their panic to punish speech.
Says economist and blogger Tyler Cowen “if your main theory here is ‘racism,’ your contribution to the discourse probably is negative.”
Next speech regulation is silence. Or non-speech. Under the new rules, silence will be no defence when the mob orders you to “wear the ribbon”. UC Berkeley Law Professor Savala Trepczynski gave away the game saying that “White silence is incredibly powerful … It’s not neutral. It acts like a weapon.” Writes legal specialist Jonathan Turley, “In a world where silence is violence and civility is complicity, there is little room for true free speech.”
In this vein nearly 2,000 people signed a petition to fire Marymount Manhattan theatre arts associate professor Patricia Simon after she appeared to fall asleep briefly during an anti-racist Zoom meeting. Complained one colleague, Simon was “ignoring … racist and sizeist actions and words of the vocal coaches under her jurisdiction.”
Just sayin’. Better get your license now. Before it’s too….. (click).
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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
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.
This just in. Connor McDavid is on track to be the greatest hockey player ever. Apologies to the Gretz/ Orr/ Howe partisans. But if he stays healthy and gets the hell out of Edmonton he will be hands-down the best ever. He is equal measures of Gretzky’s intuitive genius, Orr’s 200-foot impact. Howe’s sandpaper attitude. It’s an honour to watch him.
We know, we know, if he is so great why couldn’t he get the Oilers over the hump, particularly the past two seasons against Florida? Gretz, Orr, Howe all won Stanley Cups while leading their teams. So did Mario Lemieux. Fair point. But Howe in his prime never played more than two series in the postseason. Orr often played just three. Gretz teams often bagelled opponents for years.
McDavid’s teams the last two years have had lengthy paths to tred. Just getting to a Final is a huge accomplishment. Repeating that feat (going seven then six games) in the Final is humungous. It’s exhausting, mentally and physically. That’s why so few teams do it.
Still, that’s not the point. We have been asking since 2018 how long McDavid will hobble his legacy by staying in Edmonton. Those early columns were talking about a team that missed playoffs or did a Maple Leafs fold early on. The current iteration of the Oilers has gotten to the brink. They have players who’ve been around a while. And fell short.
Now the Oilers are an old team, the oldest in the regular season, the oldest team in the playoffs this year. Teams carrying more than two plus-30 players have a miserable track record of winning Cups. And the Oilers have zero Grade A prospects in the pipeline. At 28, McDavid is a young guy on their roster. Not good.
As the hockey world knows he can sign an extension on July 1 to follow the contract he has now. Money will be no object as the NHL salary cap (finally) goes up. Term will be forever if he wants it. His running mate Leon Draisaitl is tied up till age 36. The Oilers desperately want him to stay after the Gretzky fiasco in 1988. So what is he going to do? He’s got national endorsements in Canada, but in the U.S.? Connor who? The sky is the limit.
Oilers fans palpitating over the future of their star were looking for hints as to his mindset when he met the media following the Oilers loss in six games to Florida. It was a chance for him to say he’s staying, he loves the place, his wife is committed to freezing every winter in the Alberta capital. He could have cried and said “Mess told me not to do that”.
What they got was a lot of maybe. Yes, he kept the doors open, but he said he needs time to see the landscape till the clock tolls on July 1. He needs to examine whether this veteran team has a future. Because in a few years they’ll be like Howe’s Detroit teams in the 60s, a played-out dynasty.
Under NHL rules no team can contact him about signing. But he will know that everyone will want him at a max deal. Some will offer no state income tax. Some will have teams on the cusp of the Cup he desires (see Matthew Tkachuk to Florida in 2023). Some will be giant U.S. media cities with the ability to make him what Gretzky became in L.A. Some will offer warm weather and anonymity away from the rink.
These are all knowns. For the impatient, teams can approach the Oilers now about a trade. So he’s holding all the cards. It’s prom night and he gets his pick. Unless Edmonton (gulp) jumps the gun on a trade.
Let’s play Peter Pocklington for a minute here and see this from the Oilers’ POV. Pocklington traded Gretzky, because Peter was broke. That’s not Darryl Katz’s problem. His problem is his team is about to get ancient. There is no McDavid for Draisaitl on the horizon. Plus, you’ve tied up several players (Nurse, Nugent Hopkins) to contracts they can’t hope to play up to. And youngish players coming into free agency.
He must address the other side of the 1988 Gretzky equation. How to get full market value for a superstar? Which means getting another star to help Draisaitl going forward. You could let the two play out the string together in Edmonton, of course. But with so many strong teams in Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, even Winnipeg that would be a hard slog. And by the time you realized that it would be too late.
The smart play, as Michael Corleone would say, is move fast. Trade McDavid before the start of next season for a boatload of young players to supplement Draisaitl. Take a short-term PR hit but live to compete another day.
Of course, Katz is not going to trade McDavid. He’s a fanboy owner. He’ll throw the Rexall kitchen sink at him and hope that’s enough. McDavid will be patient (if he’s smart). The “will-he-sign?” drama will bleed into the next season, a millstone for the team. The distractions will mount before Edmonton realizes that an unsigned McDavid is a liability. And Connor on a max deal with a minus team is no bargain either.
Remember the re-structured Oilers won a Cup in 1990 using Mark Messier and the players they got for Gretzky. Think about it, Edmonton.
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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