Bruce Dowbiggin
Grave Mistake: Blame The Trudeaus, Not Sir John A.
Pop Quiz: Since the 2021 Residential schools “secret burials” hysteria allowed prime minister Justin Trudeau to declare Canada a genocidal state, how many of the graves in question have been exhumed? Examined, even, to judge the merits of the wild claims?
The answer to that would appear to be zero. Because they know what will be found. “There is no recorded case of any indigenous parent claiming that their child had disappeared after being enrolled in a residential school. Not one police report, or historical records, of any of these tales from the crypt ever occurring,” writes Brian Giesbrecht.
Which didn’t prevent Trudeau’s grotesque teddy-bear photo op in a former residential cemetery. Nor his lowering of the Canadian flag for months to draw attention to murders and abuse he has never proved—or even bothered to prove. Nor his libelling the nation he leads before the world community. (Nor firing the first Indigenous Justice Minister, Jodie Wilson Raybould, for trying to protect justice from the political needs of the PMO.)
While the federal government, in a spasm of settler guilt, set aside $320 million to indigenous nations to find more evidence of a horrific crime, the dead remain undisturbed in their graves. If only we could say the same for the truth over allegations that went across the globe about the church-run residential schools.
These “truths” are behind the recent hounding of former Mount Royal University professor Frances Widdowson at University of Lethbridge over her claims that most, in not all, the allegations of priests murdering residential kids or being used for sado-masochistic purposes had no basis in fact. Widdowson lost her job for questioning the Trudeau catechism of white guilt on the Prairies.
Widdowson is one of the people Indigenous Affairs Minister Marc Miller described as “ghouls” for pointing out that residential school indigenous children died of the diseases of the day— in particular tuberculosis. Even more children were dying of TB on the reserves where they came from. (As we pointed out here ) If residential schools had never existed these children would, sadly, still have died.
Widdowson is in good company. In the white-guilt frenzy unleashed by Trudeau many of the founding figures of the nation have been denounced, their statues toppled, their names removed from schools. None worse than Sir John A, Macdonald, the first prime minister of the nation. While radicals doused his image in fake blood, it is an uncomfortable truth that, had Macdonald not been a visionary about the nation and its Indian tribes, the Plains Indians would not exist today.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, poses for a selfie with an elder after receiving a ceremonial headdress while visiting the Tsuut’ina First Nation near Calgary, Alta., Friday, March 4, 2016.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
In a time of economic frugality Macdonald’s government paid the entire cost of inoculating the Plains population for TB, against which they had no immunity. It is no exaggeration to say that were it not for this policy there would be few or no Indigenous Plains peoples for Trudeau to use as political props.
As Giesbrecht explains here Macdonald was instrumental on a number of fronts that saved the population.“Canada’s Indians escaped the bloody fate of the American Indians and their Trail of Tears,” writes Giesbrecht. “Macdonald was justly proud of this accomplishment.”
While the U.S. Seventh Cavalry was hunting down its native population on horseback, Macdonald was concluding treaties that ended the bloody inter-tribe wars between Plains Indians in the West. He tossed the rotgut whiskey purveyors exploiting Indians south of the border. That guaranteed the natives safety from U.S. imperialism by extending the railway from coast to coast, installing the Crown, not Washington, as their partner in treaties. He also saved them from the starvation brought on from the extinction of the buffalo herds.
Most of all, Macdonald saw education, not genocide, as the saviour of natives in Canada. When the concept of building conventional day schools for them failed he proposed the idea of boarding schools where native children could be educated and, hopefully, become Christian. As Giesbrecht notes, “providing education to Indian children was a treaty obligation demanded by the Indians chiefs, and gratefully granted by the federal government. The numbered treaties included provisions that schools would be built on reserves if requested, and all of the chiefs made that request.”
Further, attendance at the schools was voluntary until about 1920. Under Macdonald parents had to agree to send their children. The government would accept the full cost of the program and the treatments of disease that so many of the children brought with them to the schools. For this and many other policies towards Indians the population of the Plains nations has increased at least tenfold since his time.
But Macdonald’s statue at Queens Park in Toronto must be boarded up to protect it from the radicals stoked by Trudeau’s alleged infamy.
Sadly, another pioneer of education in Canada was not so fortunate. Egerton Ryerson’s name was stricken from the eponymous university when the Reign of Error thugs decided that his participation in starting free live-in education for natives was tantamount to genocide. Despite the fact this proponent of free education for all died before residential schools were in practice, his statue in Toronto was toppled. Whatever happened at the schools after his death in 1884 cannot diminish his desire to educate the native peoples of Ontario and establish universal access to education in Canada.
Guess which Canadian political leader is not having his statue toppled, his likeness removed from schools and his reputation sullied? That would be Justin’s daddy Pierre Trudeau. As PM in 1968 he proposed in a white paper to eliminate native status and turn indigenous people into ordinary Canadians, thereby abrogating all the treaties they’d signed in good faith with the Crown.
With his fellow Liberal cabinet member (and later PM) Jean Chretien, Pierre Trudeau set back native rights by advocating for assimilation when what native leaders wanted was self government under the treaties they’d signed with the Crown. When forced to finally withdraw the white paper, PET petulantly said, “We’ll keep them in the ghetto as long as they want.” In 1973, the Canadian Supreme Court validated those treaties.
Oh, from 1969 until 1978, control and maintenance of residential schools was in the hands the federal government of Canada. The Liberal Party prime minister throughout this eleven-year period ? Pierre Trudeau. Funnily, his son has not made an issue of his father’s role in the bureaucratic mess by calling him a genocidal leader.” Wonder why?
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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
The week after Grey Cup is always a good time to look in for our first serious analysis at how Canada’s NHL teams are doing. So let’s take a quick… WHOA… what’s happening here?
If the playoffs were to begin next week (we wish) then it would be a cold breakfast for teams in Elbows Up. Just two clubs—Winnipeg and Montreal— would even qualify for the postseason. And the Jets have just found out their star goalie Connor Hellybuyck is unlikely to play much before mid-January.
The two putative Canadian hopes for a first Stanley cup since 1993— Toronto and Edmonton— are sucking on vapour trails. After being raked 5-2 by Montreal, the Leafs have just a 24.9 percent chance of making the playoffs. Conor McDavid’s Oilers have a better percentage but their same old goaltending woes and a ticking clock on McDavid’s back.
Granted that, going into the weekend, no team in the East was more than four points out of the wild-card spot while all but three teams were within three points of a playoff spot in the West. But the Canadian teams are stuck behind some premium teams and need lotsa’ luck so they end up like Max Verstappen not Lance Stroll.
Maybe a Canadian men’s Olympic gold medal can reduce the sting of no Cup, no future for another season. But it won’t save the jobs of coaches in Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver unlikely to survive also-ran status. Let’s take a close look at the not-so-magnificent seven starting west to east.
Vancouver: The Nucks have a sterling 4 percent chance of making the postseason as of this writing. In the powerful Western Conference that’s still an insult to a franchise that hasn’t recovered from the hasty 2013 firing of GM Mike Gillis—who won… let us us see… two Presidents Trophies and six Western Conference titles in a row. Since then? Uh, bagel.
It’s nice that Elias Petterson has come back from the morgue this season. But it will come down to goalie Thatcher Demko staying healthy and whether ownership wants to go full tank or just a quarter-tank for a draft pick. Hard to see Adam Foote surviving as coach.
Calgary: Speaking of tanking, everyone in Calgary wants the Flames to do a teardown for the top picks in the 2026 Draft. Everyone, except, for the Flames absentee owner Murray Edwards and his robo-spokesman Don Maloney. They want the five percent chance at a playoff spot and a mid-round first draft pick. The Flames missed the chance to restructure in 2023 when Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk departed. But again, denialism in the management suite tried to make it an even trade with Florida, sign huge new contracts and keep pushing. Bad decision.
Only question here is when does the purge begin and what can they get to help Dustin Wolf— signed for seven more years— in net?
Edmonton: We’ve written at length here and here about the McDavid saga. He and the management team halved the baby with a short-term deal to pretend he’s staying in the Chuck. Their healthy chance of making the playoffs (75.5 percent) says one thing. Their play in the putrid Pacific— they’re given up six-goals-plus five times in just 24 games— says another. But as long as McDavid and Leon Draisaitl stay healthy they might still finesse a ticket to a their third straight Finals ride.
But if they get near the trading deadline and the postseason is a mirage the noise to trade McDavid will be deafening. And the offers staggering for a capped-out team.
Winnipeg: Last year was supposed to be the Jets big year. Okay, that didn’t work out so well. The Jets kept their core together for another chance at finally making a serious playoff run. So it will all come down, as it has in the past, to the health and playoff juju of Hellybuyck. Their ticket out of the Central Division lies in beating powerful Colorado and Dallas and, if that happens, staying healthy.
The Jets would probably just as well their stars didn’t go get beat up in the Olympics, but that’s unlikely. There’s always been a karma about Winnipeg breaking the Canada Cup jinx. Still a long shot.
EAST
Toronto: So you’re saying Mitch Marner wasn’t the problem with the highly rated Maple Leafs never getting as far as the Conference Finals? They’re 3-5-2 in their last ten, their captain is still a sulky figure— only now his output doesn’t make it worthwhile. And the Toronto media is trying to do the players’ will to get coach Craig Berube fired for them. The same problems remain from years previous: dubious goaltending and a shallow talent pool on defence.
The biggest problem for the Leafs is their closing window for success. They’re old, have few tradeable assets in the system and have traded top picks away for short-term gains that never appeared. Expect fireworks after the Olympics if this crate doesn’t get moving. New MLSE boss Keith Pelley has no ties to the current administration and will sweep clean.
Ottawa: The Sens have managed to survive the loss of captain Brad Tkachuck to a broken finger. How? Ottawa have gotten goals from 17 different players which means they have balance. And so far they are above average 5-on-5. All good. They’ve also taken advantage of the mediocrity of the Leafs and other Eastern teams to stay afloat.
Their Achilles heel? Between the pipes. Both goalies have a save percentage under .875 and that ain’t going to cut it come spring. As always finances will limit their trades and manoeuvrability.
Montreal: The Habs were the fashionable pick before the season as the Canadian team most likely to get to the Cup they last won in 1993. Defenceman Laine Hutson is all that he promised last year. The dynamic top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky have cast back to the days of the Flying Frenchmen. Managing expectations in Montreal’s rabid hockey culture— where a misplaced apostrophe can cause chaos—means never taking anything for granted.
Now if only goaltender Jacob Dobes can keep up his play long enough for Sam Montembault to regain his form the Habs could be a thing in the spring. At this rate they might be the only thing.
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 Liberals’ first budget under Mark Carney— about nine months overdue— snuck through Parliament with Green Party leader-of-one Elizabeth “Margarita” May as the deciding vote. (All it took was a commitment to her insane climate targets.) A quick review of the Book of Revelations does not reveal this as a sign of the Apocalypse. But to Canadians who voted for a change in the spring it’s a rude reminder that no one is minding the store in Ottawa.
The Parliament Hill media has largely shelved discussion of Carney’s budget ‘guzintas (the PBO said there is a “less than 10 percent chance the government will keep its deficit-to-GDP ratio on a downward track through 2029-30… and Finance Canada has “changed its reporting of deficit financing, separating capital from operational spending.”) Translation: If Carney keeps on this track till 2030 the total GST collected from Canadians will not be enough to service the federal debt.
The chattering class is, however, full speed ahead on their Pierre Poilievre deathwatch. The leader of the CPC is one of their more anodyne figures to lead a party since Mackenzie King. His earnest kitchen-table schtick is about as dynamic as a cheese sandwich. Even when he famously defenestrated a blundering BC journalist in an apple orchard he never raised his voice. (What page am I taking from Trump’s book?”)
In the House of Commons, he has performed a monotone strafing of Liberal policy since becoming leader in 2023. He hasn’t elbowed aside a female NDP member. In the fine tradition of the House he does mock the Liberals front bench, throws water on their fevered policies and acts like a vice-principal of a small high school disciplining a student.
But in the judgment of today’s febered media— okay, the Liberals— he’s “rage-farming” or “rage-baiting” when pointing out that Canada’s debt is out of control, its real estate is a bubble waiting to burst and the relationship with the U.S. is flat lining. In fact he’s all rage, all the time, for their purposes. According to Carney’s bots, Poilievre stoops “to stirring and riling up ‘white-trash’ elements in society into hateful rhetoric against the prime minister. “
Team Carney has gloried in his travails since Donald Trump upended the spring election by cozying up to Carney. (Poilievre didn’t help himself taking pot shots at Trump who then dismissed Poilievre). CBC/ CTV/ Global savants who spit every time they mention Trump bizarrely were suddenly in enthusiastic approval of Orange Man Bad spanking PP for them.
The tone about his performance as opposition leader is vitriolic. “Pierre Poilievre’s rage-baiting and empty slogans aren’t what Canada needs”. His slogans (stolen by Carney during the election campaign), his by-election win in Alberta, his insistence on core issues— it drives the panelists on talk shows to fits for pique.
Which is funny when you think about it. Those with longer memories can recall the hijinx of the Liberals’ Rat Pack in the 1980s and 90s. Led by Sheila Copps (dubbed Tequila Sheila by Tory justice minister John Crosbie), Don Boudria and John Nunziata they were an early version of Polievere and Melissa Lantsman and the CPC front bench. Just more obnoxious.
Except the wind therapists were amused by them. Instead of rage monkeys they were the subjects of puckish CBC features. Copps could speak Italian with her (Hamilton) constituents and also had “perfect French,” said reporter Jason Moscovitz.” But she needles Mulroney in plain English,” he added, as Copps introduced a question for Brian Mulroney by comparing him to to Johnny Carson.
The irreverent Rats even produced their own T-shirts to wear in the House. “Other MPs say he’s sleazy, slimy, and a snake,” said Moscovitz, of Nunziata as he donned one of the T-shirts. So Nunziata used the same words in the House of Commons.”Sleazy, slimy Tory patronage!” he proclaimed on the floor of the House.
Laugh? We could have died. It was entertaining in the collegial debating club of the time. The sparring of the feisty Copps and her target John Crosbie was mint.
But now that the Liberals are entering a second decade of mismanaging the nation, their appetite for impertinence has disappeared. So the clever ripostes of Copps are now Poilievre “rage” farming and “rage baiting”. Some people have noticed the contrast: “Caucus unrest treated as a calamity when it involves the Conservatives, while Liberals get a pass” But the bubble-bound Canadian public only hears one slant.
In the U.S. there are hopeful signs of a bubble breakthrough. Hip TV host Bill Maher was forced to tell Woke comedian Patton Oswalt that his BlueSky world was strangling him. He enlightens an oblivious Oswalt on the UK grooming gangs. He also brought him up to reality when Oswalt said the Left never orders gender off of passports.
It’s not much, but it’s hopeful, at least in America. Here in Canada the information corridor is so thoroughly policed by the culture Stasi (using their dreaded Trump guns) that nothing can get through. Singing O Canada and not abusing the lyrics is considered a sacrilege on the Left. Daniel Smith is a Trumpist etc. Carney is intent on importing British hate speech convictions, not AI chips and nuclear energy.
If that isn’t enough of a bummer remember that Carney is just a stop-gap, a guy to rag the puck for a few years till the Liberals have groomed Justin’s eldest for the PMO. Where he can complete the Woking of traditional Canada that Grandpapa Pierre started in 1968.
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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