Our weekly Monday column is nominally a sports column. But sometimes we are lured by a sporting theme other than on the field. And with the capitulation of Mark Carney’s cringeworthy Elbows Up theme this week we can now safely reflect on the impact of the nation’s hockey obsession on tariff wars.

For those who don’t know by now, Carney’s Elbows Up meme popularized in cringeworthy commercials with actor Mike Myers was a reference to going into the corners with the legendary Gordie Howe. Legends abound on the lethality of Howe’s elbows that separated opponents from their senses. Thus, the message of Carney and Myers in Team Canada jerseys quoting Mr. Hockey was as simple as it was ridiculous.

Canada was going to go into the corner to separate Donald Trump from his tariffs? How? Carney has boasted of his hockey savvy as a goalie for Harvard. Where other nations were collapsing Carney’s Canada promised to be a stout backstop. 51st State? Hah! Locking arms with Myers and Doug Ford, Carney would show the Americans what Canadians are made of. At least that’s what they said in the election campaign to restore the Liberal brand to the nation.

The hockey theme was buttressed by the emotional victory by Team Canada over Team USA in February’s Four Nations Tournament. Having been filleted in the round-robin by the Yanks, Canada won the final game, reinforcing the nation’s dominance in a sport most Americans ignore 365 days a year. To those looking for any reason to anger Trump (hello, Andrew Coyne) it seemed like destiny for the Elbows Up crew.

As an example of the Team Canada approach Carney and his paid media wind therapists savaged Alberta premier Danielle Smith for trying build bridges with the Americans. Smith had the idea there was more to be gained from energy negotiations than from sulking. Traitor! They cried when she was seen with Trump. Consorting with the Cheeto was tantamount to selling nuclear secrets.

Elbows Up Canada, like China, would inflict counter tariffs on the U.S. after a decade of Justin Trudeau frippery. It would shut down the accusations that Canada was now a benchwarmer in global affairs. It never occurred to Team Carney or the Boomer midwits who elected him that launching a trade war against a nation whose economy was ten times the size of Canada’s might be a seriously bad idea. (Like hoping to wear down the Russian military.) Anyone pointing out this small problem was immediately denounced as hating hockey, ergo hating Canada.

To further illustrate his hockey pluck Carney’s backers bragged that the former head of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England was a skilled negotiator who would wipe the floor in negotiations with the erratic Trump. Nobody gets away with publicly declaring a post-Trudeau Canada as a failed state that should ally with the U.S. The Americans will come running to Canada when they want water, oil, aluminum, steel and maple syrup.

Then a funny thing happened. While Canada stood by, Zambonis running, ready to take it to overtime, the Americans simply ignored the taunts. Trump acted as if Elbows Up was a mirage. As trade deals were announced with other nations and international meetings convened, Carney’s Canada was left outside. In spite of the tough talk on tariffs, a blasé Trump whacked Canada with 35 percent tariffs.

The meme of Carney as a potted plant at the Ukraine White House summit came to epitomize the afterthought that is post-Trudeau Canada in this climate. Inspired by their allies at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post, Canada’s purchased media fought back with all their favoured/ debunked  Russian conspiracy theories and stories of Trump’s alleged mental incapacities. To no avail.

At just the moment that embarrassment was too great for even Team Carney’s most fervent media pals, Trump last week summoned him like a call-up from the minors to be told how it was going to be. Suddenly the implacable Carney was declaring how swell it was that Canada had the best treaty in the world. Elbows Up had suddenly become Pants Down.

Of course the beaming banker acted as if it was all part of some master plan he’d worked out between periods of the game with USA. Sure, his bluster about going into the corners was all bluff, no stuff. The Master Negotiator thing was all a cover for him to reduce government spending, re-commit to the futile climate war and (don’t tell anybody) recognize Palestine as a state in the near future.

Sure. Go with that. Anyone wanting an apology from the Potted Plant will wait a long time for satisfaction. For while Liberals talk a tough game they don’t talk at all when they’re been exposed. Even more sepulchral are the media that so readily grabbed the Elbows Up hustle to defeat Pierre Poilievre. Remember the Little Trump jibes? The Sloganeer slurs? The riding defeat?

Now that Trump had blocked their righteous elbow with a right cross they’re acting as if nothing is wrong. They’re off chasing stories about Poilievre being parachuted into an Alberta riding or Trump with Jeffrey Epstein. They’re reviving the murdered Rez babies hoax. And they’re ignoring international concerns about money laundering and drug trafficking.

Anything but the utter futility of Elbows Up and the next four years of watching the decline of Canada’s formerly respected position in the world. In heaven Gordie Howe is just shaking his head.

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.

The chicken said, “I’ve got it! We’ll provide bacon and eggs to feed the hungry.” The pig thought about the suggestion and said, “There’s only one thing wrong with your idea. For you, it only requires a contribution. But for me, it demands a commitment!”

Leaders of Western nations— minus quivering Carney’s Canada—gathered in Washington this week to thrash out Donald Trump’s proposals to end the war in Ukraine. There was considerable discussion of contributions and commitments from the assembled nations. There was also resistance from some to Trump calling the shots in the room. They agreed to disagree.

Underlying the posturing of the PMs and presidents is the supposition that, however they decide to face down Vladimir Putin, they have enough boots on the ground to counter Putin. The Russian leader is showing no signs of abating his supply of cannon fodder to the conflict. Current estimates show Russia has lost upwards of a million dead/ wounded/ missing. Sacrificing soldiers is a sacred Russian tradition in war that Putin’s hell-bent on perpetuating.

But Ukraine has no such well of the willing. For them it’s drones and the conscripted. “Drivers, artillerymen, and cooks” are holding the line”, says Bohdan Krotevich, an officer formerly with the Azov Brigade’s headquarters. “A maximum of 12 fighters hold sections 5-10 kilometres wide.” Russians regularly sneak through gaping holes in the line into Ukrainian cities and towns.

With no powerful ally sending soldiers, Ukraine has dredged up— at great cost— an entire generation of its young men to fight. Current estimates have Ukraine’s losses at over 100,000 dead and half a million civilians dead or wounded. The camouflage leader, Vladimir Zelenskyy, is desperate.

For perspective on their desperation look at the mysterious Ryan Routh, the man arrested in 2024 while stalking Trump with a rifle at his Jupiter golf club. Before his attempt on Trump Routh had mysteriously travelled the world trying to recruit mercenaries from Afghanistan, the Middle East and Asia to fight in Ukraine.

He was working with the U.S. State Department, collecting passports and having them processed through American embassies. Whether they were fighting for Ukraine or up to spy business is open to discussion. But they hardly filled the gap. For all the billions sent to Ukraine by Western Nations (absent Canada has sent an estimated $20 B.) you still need bodies to fight a war.

Israel is discovering the same about soldier shortages in its attenuated struggle in Gaza. Despite mandatory conscription, some soldiers are making a third or fourth return to military service since October. 7, 2023. The gap is widening with the exhausted army stating that it is facing a manpower shortage during the ongoing war, and currently needs some 12,000 new soldiers — 7,000 of them combat troops.

So the Israel Defense Forces announced last week that it would be giving draft dodgers — many of whom are members of the ultra-Orthodox community — a one-time opportunity to enlist in the military without facing punishment for desertion.

As opposed to Ukraine, Israel is no longer a puppy of Western democracies, many of whom— come on down, Canada— say they will recognize Palestine as a state in the near future. Tired of the bloodshed, Canada and others have stopped sending them military aid, leaving Israel isolated by all but the U.S. in its existential struggle to eradicate Hamas.

Which is ironic as Israel—like Ukraine—  is fighting a proxy war on behalf on those nations, wiping out terrorist Hezbollah, the Houthis  and the Iranian nuclear capability in recent months. In the analogy above, the EU and Canada are making a contribution. Ukraine and Israel are making a commitment in blood.

Not much has changed since we asked in our June 2022 column, “What Happens When The West Runs Out Of Ukrainians?”, “The entire fiasco is now as open-ended as the Stones Farewell Tour. Which is fine if the Ukrainians are, as advertised, willing to fight till the last man. America and the West can keep their hands clean. The media can play Plucky Little Belgium stories for their gullible viewers/ readers. “Experts” can war-game till the cows come home. 

The fly in this ointment is that, with American prestige and profit invested so deeply now, what happens if they run out of Ukrainian patriots to throw into the fire against a seemingly unrepentant Putin? If the proxies are pushing up daisies what is Plan B? No one in the Western elites is sending their boys to die in Kiev or the Donbas region.”

This begs the question “what would compel the effete EU nations and Canada to commit soldiers on the ground in any NATO conflict?” Say Putin moves on the Baltic States, formerly Soviet possessions, under the guise of creating a buffer state? What if he decides to reclaim areas along the Finnish border?

Are Carney’s enervated Canadian progressives going to down their lattes and get killed in a foreign conflict? More to the point, can a bankrupt Canada obtain the weapons, materiél and logistics to meet their NATO obligations? If Putin or Xi are watching the current Elbows Up kabuki theatre in Ottawa do you think they’ll be dissuaded by Canada’s purity of thought from pursuing a new conflict in Europe or the Straits of Taiwan?

According to his spokesperson, Trump isn’t sending his boys/ girls/ other to the Dnieper River. “@PressSec: “The President has definitively stated U.S. boots will NOT be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies.”

Ditto for the Woke West or the EU. Will Kier Starmer’s British or the Germans or French commit to the losses demanded for subduing Russia or China? Hard to see that sacrifice from peoples who’ve meekly accepted the immigrant wave the past decade. They don’t even have a motivating national cause besides free healthcare. Speaking of Allies with manpower issues, the South Koreans are also sending out warnings that their declining birth rate is cutting their military preparedness by 20 percent.

It doesn’t take much to see that the security blanket Western progressives count on to save them is, as Yeats said, “a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick”. An equation based on keeping their hands clean. Only luck will tell if they finally make a commitment or skate by with mere contributions.

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.