Bruce Dowbiggin
Covid Unmasked: Forget What We Told You

This just in: “Long Covid is really mask-induced exhaustion-syndrome… In the absence of strong empirical evidence of effectiveness, mask wearing should not be mandated let alone enforced by law.” A study by Frontiers In Public Health shows that masks likely lead to increased heart rate, blood pressure, blood CO2 levels, breathing difficulties, lowered blood oxygenation and more.
You remember masks. The Maginot Line against viruses. Not wearing them on a beach could get you fined $500 in 2020-22. If your friendly CBC, NBC or PBS news anchor hasn’t dropped this mask-induced exhaustion-syndrome pearl the way they did the daily inflated PCR results don’t be shocked. After rushing false-positives to a terrorized nation for three years the government wind therapists have now gone do ground to protect their reputations.
So when president-for-life Joe Biden ended the U.S. Covid emergency this week with a single-sentence declaration it was studiously soft-pedalled by the Media Party. What? Free to move about the nation? Canadians who spurned the threats of excommunication over vaccines can once again head across the American border to see Herbert Hoover’s birthplace once again.
For the same reasons the mask memo is slow to make its way around the office you probably haven’t heard that— while Covid concern itself has waned— excess deaths remain stubbornly high in countries that employed the mRNA vaccines. Those who’ve had every shot and booster known to man are still dying of Covid. Despite Mr. Trudeau’s magic juice.
In those large parts of the world— say Africa, India— that didn’t use their population as guinea pigs for spike proteins the virus replicated its traditional two spikes of death and then disappeared. This decline could be due to many factors, but one factor we can absolutely discount for the disappearance is mRNA vaccines. The ones touted by our leadership class as the secret bullet to end the dying. The ones the Western world has swallowed whole. They didn’t use them.
You also won’t hear from your Good Morning Toronto or Wake Up Vancouver meat puppet the truly disturbing thought that, while not curing or even curtailing Covid, the mRNAs shoved down your throat are having all sorts of side effects that, according to Health Canada, range from myocarditis to pericarditis to Bells Palsy to blood clots. (We know, we survived a sudden pulmonary embolism after our second jab.)
Health Canada says it’s “a very small chance that there will be a serious side effect”. But even as they dissemble about side effects they also can’t prove that these conditions are not related to elevated deaths. There just wasn’t time to properly test the mRNA vaccines. So sorry. If only we knew…
Speaking of which, Covid researcher and critic Alex Berenson notes a widely read 2016 paper that stated: “… the tolerance for side effects is very low for a drug that is injected into healthy individuals… In other words, mRNAs shouldn’t be used in large numbers of healthy people before we gained years of experience with them in cancer patients, who have far shorter life expectancies and a much higher tolerance for risk as they pursue cures.
When regulators approve drugs, they do so on the basis that those drugs are safe and effective. The first word is ‘safe.’ Not effective, safe. First, do no harm. But in 2020 drug companies, scientists, regulators, and the government tossed that maxim aside.”
The result? @michaelsenger “Lockdowns reversed decades of progress in education, human rights, and the global war on poverty in an instant, for absolutely no benefit, without a peep from the supposed human rights community, all out of sycophancy to billionaires too corrupt to question data from China.”
After threatening you, locking you inside your house or getting you fired from work, the media geniuses can’t bring themselves to say we screwed up. While even Dr. Fauci is now admitting that he pumped the gas a bit firmly on masks, the networks and news organizations are too pre-occupied chasing stories about Dylan Mulvaney or Trump’s indictment to get around to saying sorry for biting so hard on the story.
The truth is, misleading people about the Covid lockdown, subsequent vaccine regimes and their side effects was a dare. How could anyone possibly disagree with the expert class on good-faith grounds? There was no other reasonable position besides theirs. Their hearts are pure. Your mind was bent.
To disagree with the impeccable Dr. Fauci, Teresa Tam, Justin Trudeau and the WHO was to declare yourself mentally unstable. So sceptics like the Great Barrington Declaration who proposed alternative narratives for Covid’s lethality needed to be institutionalized in gulags (see: Australia), welded into their apartment (China) or dismissed from society (Canada/ USA). Or, like tennis star Novak Djokovic, left to wander the globe as a pariah, an example to mere mortals what happened when you question Science.
This episode was a crisis of authority for an elite scientific, cultural and political class groomed by Barack Obama Inc. ®, one so insecure it had to literally destroy all dissent. So sure of their traditional entitlements and cultural superiority that they could not envision even a sliver of doubt coming true. And when concessions were warranted they shifted the argument to Donald Trump.
From Dr. Fauci to the fools on SNL or the smug laptop class at the Toronto Star, they closed ranks around a lie to bolster their importance. You paid. They skated. That’s one truth you can’t mask.
Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. https://share.hsforms.com/16edbhhC3TTKg6jAaRyP7rActsj5
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
Bruce Dowbiggin
“I Promised Mess I Wouldn’t Do This”

There’s an abiding idiom in hockey trades. It says whoever got the best player in a deal wins the trade. If you get Wayne Gretzky you win every trade. After that, received wisdom of trades is more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Everyone has a theory. But all agree there’s no denying the impact of trades toward NHL success.
From their evolution as simple player-for-player swaps to the current version of trading players for draft picks, cash, future considerations, salary-cap space or actual humans, the art of swapping in the NHL has become a science, an art and an accounting exercise. Where once it was a pair of hockey-lifer GMs making deals, today’s moves require capologists, accountants, lawyers, agents and, often, the player’s family being onside before a deal can be approved by the NHL.
A whole new culture has grown up within the sport so that deals can be swung. As trades have become more complicated, they have concurrently become less of a burden on the moving parts involved. We’ve come off an offseason with a surprisingly modest number of intriguing deals.
With preseason games starting, to whet the ref’s whistle, here’s a list Rating The Top 25 Trades in NHL history from our next book Deal With It: The Most Impactful Trades In NHL history and How They Changed The Game (due later in 2023). (from ***** to ***)
1) August 9, 1988: Wayne Gretzky, Marty McSorley, and Mike Krushelnyski from Edmonton to Los Angeles for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gélinas, the Kings’ first rounders in 1989 (traded to New Jersey) , 1991 (Martin Rucinsky), 1993 (Nick Stadujar), and $15 million. *****
2) May 15, 1967: Phil Esposito, Fred Stanfield and Ken Hodge from Chicago to Boston for Gilles Marotte, Pit Martin and Jack Norris. ****1/2
3) October 4, 1991: Mark Messier and future considerations (Jeff Beukeboom) from Edmonton to the New York Rangers for Bernie Nicholls, Steven Rice, Louie DeBrusk and future considerations (David Shaw) ****1/
4) December 6, 1995: Patrick Roy and Mike Keane from Montreal to Colorado for Jocelyn Thibault, Martin Rucinsky and Andrei Kovalenko ****1/2
5) June 30, 1992 Eric Lindros from Quebec City to Philadelphia for Steve Duchesne, Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, Chris Simon, a 1993 1st round pick (#10-Jocelyn Thibault), a 1994 1st-Round pick, (#10-Nolan Baumgartner)) and $15 million in cash *****
6) March 3, 1968: Norm Ullman, Floyd Smith, Paul Henderson and Doug Barrie to Toronto for Garry Unger, Peter Stemkowski, Frank Mahovlich and Carl Brewer ****1/2
6A). January 13, 1971: Frank Mahovlich from Detroit to the Montreal for Guy Charron, Bill Collins and Mickey Redmond ****
7) March 10, 1980 Butch Goring from L.A. to New York Islanders for Dave Lewis and Bill Harris ****
8. November 1947 : Max Bentley from Chicago to Toronto for Gus Bodnar, Gaye Stewart, Bud Poile, Bob Goldham and Ernie Dickens ****
9) January 2, 1992: Gary Leeman, Alex Godynyuk, Jeff Reese, Craig Berube and Michel Petit from Toronto to Calgary for Jamie Macoun, Ric Nattress, Rick Wamsley, Kent Manderville and Doug Gilmour ****1/2
10) August 17, 1992 Dominik Hasek from Chicago to Buffalo for Stephane Beauregard and a fourth-round draft pick (Eric Daze) ****
11) July 23, 1957 Ted Lindsay and Glenn Hall From Detroit To Chicago for Johnny Wilson, Forbes Kennedy, Hank Bassen, Eric Preston ***1/2
12) June 28, 1994: Garth Butcher, Mats Sundin, Todd Warriner and 1994 first-round pick (#10-Nolan Baumgartner) from Quebec City to Toronto for Wendel Clark, Sylvain Lefebvre, Landon Wilson and 1994 1st round pick (#22-Jeff Kealty) ***1/2
13) May 22, 1970 : 1971 1st-round pick (#1-Guy Lafleur) and Francois Lacombe from Oakland to Montreal for Ernie Hicke and 1970 1st-round pick (#10-Chris Oddleifson) *****
14) Nov. 7, 1975: Phil Esposito, Carol Vadnais from Boston to New York Rangers For Brad Park, Jean Ratelle ****
15) October 1989: Tom Kurvers from New Jersey to Toronto for first-round pick (#3 Scott Niedermayer) ****
16) Nov. 30 2005: Joe Thornton from Boston to San Jose for Brad Stuart, Wayne Primeau and Marco Sturm ***1/2
17) December 20, 1995: Joe Nieuwendyk from Calgary to Dallas for Jarome Iginla ***1/2
18) Feb. 22, 1964: Andy Bathgate and Don McKenney from New York Rangers to Toronto for Dick Duff, Bob Nevin, Rod Seiling, Arnie Brown and Bill Collins. ***
19) March 7, 1988: Brett Hull from Calgary to to St. Louis for Rick Wamsley and Rob Ramage ***
20) June 29, 1990: Denis Savard from Chicago to Montreal for Chris Chelios ***
21) June 24, 1963: Dave Balon, Leon Rochefort, Len Ronson and Lorne “Gump” Worsley from New York Rangers to Montreal for Donny Marshall, Phil Goyette and Jacques Plante. ***
22) June 24, 2000: Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha from Florida to the New York Islanders for Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen ***
23) February 10, 1960: Red Kelly from Detroit to Toronto for Marc Rheaume ***1/2
24) October 10, 1930: King Clancy from Ottawa to Toronto for Eric Petting, Art Smith, cash ***
25) June 28, 1964: Ken Dryden and Alex Campbell from Boston to Montreal for Paul Reid and Guy Allen ****
Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. https://share.hsforms.com/16edbhhC3TTKg6jAaRyP7rActsj5
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
Bruce Dowbiggin
If You Don’t Hear From Me, It’s Because I Don’t Hear From You.

In his memoir, former BMO CEO Tony Comper recalled the press conference to announce a merger between two Japanese automobile corporations. Everything was going swimmingly until someone at the presser asked how long would it be before the two corporate cultures fully merged?
One of the CEOs replied without hesitation. “Forty-three years.”
Forty-three years? Why forty-three years? he was asked.
“Because that’s how long it will be until the executives who made this deal are all dead.”
Yes, there are stubborn business cultures. But there are also political cultures that persist against all efforts to convince them they are deluded. People find it hard to change their ways— particularly when they’ve defended them publicly for years. The New Left’s ironclad resistance to reason and debate is a feature, not a glitch. How to reach them in a friendly, inclusive manner?
Good luck. The Right’s challenge is thinking these people will respond to shame or being corrected. Can’t be done. Won’t be done. They’re like Japanese soldiers fighting WW II on a deserted island 25 years after armistice. They’ll die repeating the Donald Trump Bleach meme to themselves.

Marines help a Japanese soldier from a dugout on Tinian Island during the Fall of Tinian in World War II. He holds a cigarette the Leathernecks used to coax him out. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
This Gallup poll sheds light on how American (and Canadian) cultures can be blissfully unaware of some huge stories and obsessed by other narratives that fit their mindset. It shows that from 1972-2022 that GOP trust of media has plummeted from 41 percent to under 10 percent, while independents have gone from 53 percent to under 36 percent trust. IOW, their former favourite news sources don’t jive with their everyday reality.
But Democrats in the poll have vaulted from 64 percent to 76 percent in trust of media. Why? One reason probably lies with being told the narratives that please them. That give them comfort. These consumers allow legacy media’s fact checkers to sort out what they should know from “disinformation” without getting their hands dirty with the original story.
How pervasive was the scrubbing? The recent Missouri v. Biden recognized that federal government officials had been interfering with social media companies that digressed from the “accepted” line. An appeals court ordered them to stop. In another case, FBI was bribing reporters and scientists to change their opinions on the origin of the Covid-19 virus, sanitizing stories before they are doled out to the Woke.
“The Science” is supposed to be an ongoing vigorous debate with few settled laws. Yet, most cult scientists refuse debate, preferring to dismiss opponents as conspiracy nuts or— as they did with vaccines— dangers to society. When Al Gore allows himself to be cornered by questions, he rolls his eyes, sighs theatrically and asks his followers how anyone could deny The Science.
Gore’s climate apocalypse culture has morphed within a generation from the few fighting pollution to a global dogma of CO2 poisoning nature . Attempts to talk sense on carbon emission obsession, plastics prohibitions, aversion to the nuclear option, Greta Thunberg beatification have all proven futile in the face of an End Oil Now cult that makes Scientology look like the Boy Scouts.
It was the same for the #RussiaHoax, #FinePeopleHoax, #BleachHoax and now Hillary Clinton’s “real war on truth, facts, and reason”. These liberal road-tested canards persists to this day. Here’s Biden on a rare cogent day this summer repeating the #FinePeople hoax that has been debunked years before. Even the Washington Post has had enough, listing Biden’s Top 100 fabulist claims since becoming POTUS.
The latest cult cleansing is Biden’s patently false denial of any contact with son Hunter Biden’s Shakedown scheme. The denial is awarded first position beside #climateemergency on search engines and nightly newscasts. Famously, 51 former security directors and officials claimed, without evidence, that Hunter’s infamous laptop was Russian disinformation. Case closed, said MSNBC. No wonder so many consumers of legacy media in this echo chamber can blithely claim there is no substance to any of the Hunter stories documented by the competition and chronicled on his own hard drive.
The Canadian equivalent of denial culture came with the magic “cure-all” vaccines. Rather than publicly confront the Truckers Convoy on their refusal to take Covid-19 vaccines (which are now accepted as being flawed ), Trudeau hid in the Rideau Cottage calling truckers “an insult to science”. To make sure they never got a chance to question him he sent the cops after them, arrested them, suspended their civil liberties and finances and subjected them to show trials.
And he was supported by the purchased Canadian media who vilified the protesters— for lack of armed insurrection or rioting— for staying too long in their protest. Many promoted false stories of arson and foreign financing of the convoy. This media Trudeau then tried to reward with Bill C-18— designed to make Meta, Google and other large tech sources pay to prop up failing Canadian media. In response, Meta has blocked all news links in Canada and cancelled existing deals with Canadian news outlets. The blocked links cover both Canadian and foreign news in light of Bill C-18.
And the same newspaper lobby that largely gave him a free pass on declaring a national emergency now wants the $595 million “temporary” bailout to be extended with double the subsidies (seeking government tax credits equal to 35% of labour costs.) The bailout meant to aid transition to digital is now instead a Trudeau lifeline in the Toronto Star’s bankruptcy. In the meantime, writes Michael Geist, “investment in the publishing sector has ground to a halt, Canadians have lost access to news on social media, and small and independent media are particularly hard hit. Avoiding the Canadian outcome is a now a top policy priority in other countries looking at media legislation.”
All this as the federal government prepares an online hate speech law— hate to be defined by themselves.
Many are just hoping that a Liberal loss in the next election will cease the encircling madness. That sanity will prevail. But the Japanese car manufacturers are telling us not to get our hopes too high. Trudeau Nation is quite prepared to got to its grave before ever admitting its copious mistakes.
Sign up today for Not The Public Broadcaster newsletters. Hot takes/ cool slants on sports and current affairs. Have the latest columns delivered to your mail box. Tell your friends to join, too. Always provocative, always independent. https://share.hsforms.com/16edbhhC3TTKg6jAaRyP7rActsj5
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
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