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Bruce Dowbiggin

Western Discontent: The Days Of Our Lives

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“When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.” — Bill Murray as Phil Conners in Groundhog Day.

Twenty-three years ago this week I arrived in Calgary to take a job as sports columnist for the Calgary Herald. It was like an ice palace, covered with snow drifts and frozen dirt. (I’d golfed in Toronto two days earlier.) As I shuffled to my rental car I seriously wondered why I had risked everything to move West, a place my mother hated after three dismal years living in the 1950s in Edmonton.

I certainly didn’t need the job. I was comfortable at CBC Radio in Toronto doing sports nationally in the morning. My executive thought I’d lost my mind. “Why are you going there? You’re a big city guy from Montreal and Toronto.” (My first inkling what CBC executives thought of the West)

But I was looking for a challenge and relief from getting up at 4 A.M. When the Herald’s editor told me, “At your age (45) you won’t get this offer again” I thought, “Why not?” To understand Canada you have to live in all of Canada. Describing the country from Toronto is like a worm describing the garden.

So hello Calgary, goodbye Toronto. Little did I know I was about to enter the plot from Bill Murray’s brilliant existential comedy Ground Hog Day. In the film Murray plays Phill Conners, an acerbic weatherman for a Pittsburgh TV station. He hates his assignment covering Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog who sees his shadow on Ground Hog Day.

He is snotty with what he sees as bucolic rubes. “This is pitiful. A thousand people freezing their butts off waiting to worship a rat. What hype. Groundhog Day used to mean something in this town. They used to pull the hog out, and they used to eat it. You’re hypocrites, all of you!”

Through a strange quirk he suddenly becomes destined to live the same day, February 2, in an endless loop till he gets it right spiritually and romantically. He is baffled, enraged, frustrated, depressed, suicidal as the same people and situations repeat themselves. Each day begins with the radio in his room playing “I Got You, Babe” by Sonny & Cher.

Phil wonders about the Buddhist nightmare he’s living. “Well maybe the real God uses tricks, you know? Maybe he’s not omnipotent. He’s just been around so long he knows everything.”

Like Phil Conners I was a TV snob who maybe thought he was slumming in Stampede land. With my Toronto and CBC biases intact, I sought to change Calgary rather than the obverse. It showed. After I wrote critically about a fatal chuckwagon accident, one local columnist hissed that I didn’t know “a Charolais from a Chardonnay”. Good line, BTW.

Like Phil Conners, I was destined to live the same day over and over till I got right with the people I met in Calgary. Replacing Toronto/ CBC data in my brain with an appreciation of the people I now met took time. Not everything in Calgary was perfect. Not everything from Toronto was worth abandoning.

But I found myself liking the authenticity of the West, the determination of the people to pursue a goal, the long line of purple mountains to the west as my plane would bring me back after assignments. (Nothing can make me like the weather.)

I began rooting for them in their eternal struggle against the snobs— like my exec who thought Calgary was Baffin Island with an energy industry. As this column from 2018 illustrates, I had become a vendu, a sell-out to the petro billionaires. I was a traitor to my class.

Like Murray’s character I began to see the honest beauty in so many and the value of their dreams. And got right with the freedom to speak, the freedom to pursue goals now being suffocated by the blue-check elite. Canada had enough liberal enclaves. It needs checks and balances.

Which is why I sympathize with how they’re being made non-people by the current prime minister and the Media Party. The recent naming of a Greenpeace agitprop extremist as cabinet minister for the energy industry is a clear provocation against his Western political enemies. The preening press conference in Glasgow where he grandiosely proclaimed a cap on an industry that made the entire nation prosperous was an excommunication (thanks Rex Murphy) of the West.

Worse the provincial Conservatives, who planned a challenge to the equalization system, have become mired in the Covid crisis, distracted by the diktats of the health “experts” whose remedies changed every five minutes. It got so bad that Calgary elected a new mayor who thinks the city is in the midst of a climate disaster.

For what? A Boy Scout badge for global citizenship while the rest of the world snickers at Canada’s gullibility?

There is pushback. Alberta approved the referendum to renegotiate the equalization scheme. In Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe says the province needs a new deal within Confederation. That led Globe & Mail editors to sniff, “Moe wants Saskatchewan to have nationhood status. Yes, it’s as bizarre as it sounds “

That snark prompted Toronto author and psychoanalyst Jordan Peterson to take up the West’s cause. “This is not bizarre, you elitist centralist snobs. This is exactly what is going to happen given Trudeau’s antipathy toward the economic engines of the west. It’s absolutely inevitable. Wake up, Toronto.”

But Peterson is unique. Led by Toronto media/ culture voices the West is a whipping post. My heart is with my neighbours as they try to keep their bearings in these stormy seas. I’m not sure how long I’ll remain here (my kids and grandkids have moved elsewhere to pursue their lives), but like Phil Conners my loyalty will be with the proud, rambunctious Albertans who’ve taught me the meaning of a fulfilled life.

 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand has been nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan is called InExact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

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BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Hunting Poilievre Covers For Upcoming Demographic Collapse After Boomers

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For those not familiar with hunting seasons in Canada it may come as a surprise that the nation has a year-round hunting season. That would be the targeting of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre by the massed army of Liberals, their bots and the richly endowed media pack. Forget he’s never held power. He’s to blame for the ills in Canadian society.

It has been a good hunt. After floor-crossing by dissident CPC, the Liberals are one seat from the majority that Canadian voters denied them in the spring. (They’ll likely get the majority soon.) MPs who a day earlier were at Conservative Xmas parties suddenly sang the praises of Carney. MPs in ridings targeted by the Chinese suddenly joined Team Elbow Up.

All the while the media corps landed blows from their perch. Robert Benzie: “I know that Premier [Danielle] Smith is very unhappy privately with Pierre Poilievre because she thinks that [MOU motion] is undermining this [pipeline] project.” The nadir of the media dog pile was formerly eminent scribe Robert Fife who sniped, “Conservatives persist with cute legislative tricks, while the government tries to run a country.” Run a country. That’s rich.

From his lips to Liberal brains, however. “.@CBCNews and @AlJazeeraWorld viewers consider themselves uniquely informed, says @ElectionsCan_E report. The two TV networks were named by self-described “informed” voters when asked where they got their news.

It is, seemingly, a great time to be a Liberal. Or not. While Operation Poilievre was gathering steam for Xmas polling revealed that Liberals and Conservatives remain locked in a tie, and Canadians continue to express ambivalence about the country’s direction, mixed feelings about their leaders, and sharp divides by generation, region, and policy concern. These generational discrepancies continue to be buried.

As was the case in the spring, the Liberals are supported only by the Boomer generation that swallowed Elbows Up nostalgia like a fat man on a donut. The under 60s demo at every level shows the current Carney agenda is a loser for them. In the segment of house-rich Boomers the Libs lead 50-31 over CPC. But in every other category it’s “how can I get out of here faster?”

The 45-59 demo it’s 46-36 Conservatives; 30-44 it’s a whopping 48-31 CPC; 18-29 it’s 40-39 CPC. A healthy chunk of Liberal supporting from the collapse of NDP vote. Where they used to poll in the 20s, the highest demo shows 11 percent support. Otherwise Poilievere would be PM.

Meanwhile, research now finds that 54 percent of Canadians say the growing number of newcomers to the country threatens our traditional customs and values— an increase of sixteen points since 2020. Over the same period, the share of Canadians who say immigration strengthens our society fell thirteen points to 35%

In short, the Carney Circus of marrying Canada to China and the EU is a card trick that will be exposed shortly. But where do we see the Ottawa press corps attention to this impending demographic snow plow? As we wrote in March  “It’s not hard to see the (under 60s)  looking at the Mike Myers obsession with a long-gone Canada and saying let’s get out of here. 

Recently former TVOntario host Steve Pakin attended two convocations. The first at the former Ryerson University, (switched to Toronto Metropolitan University in a fit of settler colonizer guilt.) The second at Queens University, traditionally one of the elite schools in the nation. Here’s what he saw.

“At the end of the (TMU) convocation, when Charles Falzon, on his final day as dean of TMU’s Creative School, asked students to stand and sing the national anthem, many refused. They remained seated. Then, when the singing began, it was abundantly noticeable that almost none of the students sang along. And it wasn’t because they didn’t know the words, which were projected on a big screen. The unhappy looks on their faces clearly indicated a different, more political, explanation.

I asked some of the TMU staff about it after the ceremony was over, and they confirmed what I saw happens all the time at convocations. Then I texted the president of another Ontario university who agreed: this is a common phenomenon among this generation at post-secondary institutions.” 

At Queens, where Canadian flags were almost non-existent, O Canada was sung, but the message of unrest was clear: “Convocation sends a message of social stability,” Queen’s principal Patrick Deane  began in his speech.  “It is a ceremony shaped in history. You should value your connection to the past, but question that inheritance. Focus on the kind of society you’d like to inhabit.”

You can bet Deane is not telling them to question climate change and trans rights. As Paikin observes, “if we fail to create a more perfect union, we shouldn’t be surprised when a vast swath of young people don’t sing our anthem the way so many of the rest of us do.” So why are the best and brightest so reluctant to see as future in becoming the new professional class that runs society?

In the Free Press River Page searched the source of their discontent. “If the Great Recession, Covid-19, and the spectre of an artificial intelligence-assisted ‘white collar bloodbath’ has taught the professional class anything, it is that their credentials cannot save them. This insecurity, compounded by the outrageous cost of living in many large cities, has pushed the PMC’s anxieties to the breaking point. 

“Add that to the triumph of identity politics in professional class institutions like universities, corporate C-suites, non-governmental organizations, and media—itself a byproduct of inter-elite competition as many have observed—and what you have is the modern left.

“… they’ve already come to the baffling conclusion that there’s no difference between class struggle and child sex changes. More to the point, the socialist mantra “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” has only ever stood the test of time in Anabaptist sects. It requires a religious devotion to self-sacrifice that is not characteristic of this anxious and hyper-competitive class—as many actual socialists have spent the last decade warning.”

The tsunami over immigration has caused severe dislocations— as PM Steven Harper predicted in the 2015 election debate. He was shouted down by the dopey dauphin Justin Trudeau who opened the sluice gates to every kind of progressive nonsense. Which is now evident.

Like all people addicted, CDN Boomers don’t want the truth. They want performance theatre, T-shirts and hockey games. They blame Trump for their predicament, caught between grim realities. Will they take the 12 steps? Or will their kids have to tell them the facts as they escort them to the home?” We’re now seeing the likely answer to that question everywhere in Canadian society.

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 2025 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 new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books

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Bruce Dowbiggin

NFL Ice Bowls Turn Down The Thermostat on Climate Change Hysteria

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Oh, the weather outside was frightful. But the football was so delightful. Week 15 of the NFL season was a cryogenic success of snow and sub-zero temperatures. Here were the temperatures at game time this weekend.

Chicago: -11 degrees C.

Cincinnati: -12 degrees F.

Kansas City: -8 degrees C.

New England: -2 C (with an 87 percent chance of snow).

Philadelphia: -2 degrees C.

New York -1 degree C.

Pittsburgh: -7 degrees C.

For fans of NFL football none of this seemed out of character with late-season football. There are legendary games played in arctic conditions. The windchill for the 1967 Dallas/ Green Bay NFC championship was -25 C.

Chargers at Bengals: Jan. 10, 1982 (-24 C, feels like -39 C).

Seahawks at Vikings in NFC wild-card matchup Jan 10, 2016. -21 C with wind chill -25C

Dolphins at Chiefs: Jan. 13, 2024 (-4 degrees, feels like -27 degrees)

As recently as last week’s Bills win over the Bengals games are often played with drifts of snow on the field and the mercury bottoming out. While Canada’s Grey Cup game is played at the end of November it’s still had some brutal weather history of its own.

The point of this meteorology meandering is that, according to our good King Charles III and many other doomsday cultists the concept of snow and cold was supposed to be a figment of the past by now. For almost half a century Michael Mann and the climate prophets of IPCC have been predicting the end of snow and the onset of warmist floods and burning forests. They gambled trillions of the public’s dollars on the certainty that the public would buy computer modelling and data-distortion predicting doom.

For decades it has worked. The careers of people like critic Mark Steyn have been ruined, heretics declared and fortunes dissipated by the trust-fund fanatics who bankroll wackadoodles like Stephen Guilbeault, the convicted felon who Trudeau made Minister of the Environment. No matter how absurd or devious the source, it was a gospel that the fiery inferno was coming next Tuesday. But the weather has remained stubbornly resistant to Elizabeth May’s catechism of climate.

Yet, some dedicated climate advocates and their followers are finally changing their tune in the face of their own observation of lying liars like Al Gore and Greta Thunberg. The share of Americans who say climate scientists understand very well whether climate change is occurring decreased from 37 percent in 2021 to 32 percent this year. A similar October study from the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute found that “belief in human-driven climate change declined overall” since 2017.

Reports the uber-liberal L.A. Times: “The unraveling of climate catastrophism got another jolt recently with the formal retraction of a high-profile 2024 study published in the journal Nature. That study — which had predicted a calamitous 62% decline in global economic output by 2100 if carbon emissions were not sufficiently reduced — was widely cited by transnational bodies and progressive political activists alike as justification for the pursuit of aggressive decarbonization. 

But the authors withdrew the paper after peer reviewers discovered that flawed data had skewed the result. Without that data, the projected decline in output collapses to around 23%. Oops.”

Even stalwart media apologists for climate hysteria like the Times are starting to have doubts. Under the headline “The left’s climate panic is finally calming down” they describes “Erstwhile ardent climate-change evangelist Bill Gates published a remarkable blog post addressing climate leaders at the then-upcoming COP30 summit. Gates unloaded a blistering critique of what he called ‘the doomsday view of climate change,’ which he said is simply “wrong.”

Trump-besotted American Democrats seeking to soften their Woke image before the 2026 midterms are likewise carving out more moderate positions on climate “that could well deprive Republicans of a winning political issue with which to batter out-of-touch, climate-change-besotted Democrats. But for the sake of good governance, sound public policy and the prosperity of the median American citizen, it would be the best thing to happen in a decade.”

Sadly Canada under Mark Carney remains a staunch climate warrior. The removal of Guilbeault as federal Environmental Minister may have seemed a step toward sanity, but there is no hint that the billions of dollars from hidden money spigots will be closed down any time soon. The B.C. government’s acquiescence to the climate propaganda of Indigenous bands shows no sign of abating. Indeed, it is just ramping up in the land claims that threaten to make home ownership a thing of the past.

PM Mark Carney is a dedicated temperature fabulist going back to his days as governor of the Bank of England. His first fights in Canada were over taxing carbon and hobbling her energy industry. As we wrote in this November 2024 column, the certainty in which the Canadian Left revels is actually dividing, not uniting citizens.

So perhaps if enough citizens spend an afternoon shivering in the stands of a wintertime football game we might achieve a small piece of sanity and learn that that , while climate is always changing, it’s not worth the price we’ve paid this century.

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 2025 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 new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books.

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