Bruce Dowbiggin
You Had An Option, Canada. And You Settled For This?

John Turner: “I had no option.”
Brian Mulroney: ”You had an option, sir, to say ‘no’ and you chose to say ‘yes’ to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal party.” Federal Leaders Debate 1984
It is Weasel Time in the urban salons of the 416/ 514/ 613/ 604. With the growing realization that everyone outside Canada—and more specifically Eastern Canada— sees Justin Trudeau as a punch line the guilty who repeatedly voted for him are suddenly trying to cover their tracks.
“I didn’t want to vote for him,” they explain. “But I had no option.”
Let’s pause to consider that. Since he was elected in 2015 which Justin Trudeau did you miss? RCMP Obstructor? Captain Blackface? The Kielburger Kid? Ethics Offender? Be My Teddy Bear? “She Perceived It Differently”? Mr. Dressup? The Chinese Vaccine Swindler? Race Baiter? Cucumber Pants? Bollywood Justin? The Wizard of Winnipeg Labs? I’ve Got Your Credit Rating?
Now let’s consider CPC leader Erin O’Toole. Okay, there wasn’t a lot there. But there wasn’t a moral deficiency a mile wide that embarrassed the nation as when Skippy goes swanning about the G7 or G20.
The ethics commissioner wasn’t repeatedly finding him guilty for taking free stuff. His policies could charitably called Liberal Lite. He was trying hard to make the 416/ 514/ 613 like him by abandoning conservative policies. The worst thing his enemies could throw at O’Toole was his wife serving him a beer after he had a jog.
So please, Trudeau deniers, you had an option. Don’t put the blame for prolonging this long national embarrassment on anyone but yourself. And the NDP.
But if you still need a reason to think JTPM is the worst prime minister of the post-war era— perhaps ever— consider his execrable performance during the Truckers Convoy. Convinced only Nazis could disagree with his godlike status, Trudeau— and Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland— insisted that the only way the convoy could have quickly raised nearly $10 million on two crowdfunding platforms was if nefarious foreign actors were funding the protest.
Taking their leader’s cue, clueless Liberal jackanapes promoted the same libel of foreign funding interference in the debate over emergency measures. Adding to the chorus were the PM’s poodles at CBC who doubled down on the myth of foreign interference, reporting that thousands of suspicious donations came from foreigners. The CBC lap dogs added, “The donations identified by CBC News are likely only a fraction of all the donations made by people outside of Canada.” (CBC has now withdrawn the story.)
Trudeau used the scare to justify freezing the finances of people he disagreed with, jeopardizing their livelihoods and threatening them with criminal charges. “If you’ve joined the protest because you’re tired of COVID, you now need to understand you are breaking laws,” he said, conflating mischief with treason. “The consequences are becoming more and more severe”.
In a move criticized by many Western democracies Trudeau suspended Canada’s cherished traditions of free speech and dissent to silence his blue-collar critics. And invented a coup by people who had no weapons, never interrupted the running of government, never kidnapped a politician and never even darkened the door of the House of Commons. But honked horns a lot.
It was all bullshit, as we learned last week with the visit to Parliament by FINTRAC official Barry MacKillop. McKillop said there was not a hint of foreign threat to Canada’s democracy in the donations. “It was their own money. It wasn’t cash that funded terrorism or was in any way money laundering,” he told a Parliamentary committee. “I believe they just wanted to support the cause.”
This supported an earlier report from the funding platforms that also contradicted the PM’s paranoid ranting. The truckers weren’t feeding at the trough of outside actors. They were just “fed up”. But Skippy attacked them with all the weapons in a PM’s arsenal. According to Department of Finance officials, as little as $20 in donations was enough to trigger a bank account freeze and an investigation under the act.”
So, to recap for our friends who thought there was no better option than Trudeau. The PM hid from protesters, slandered them as Nazis and women haters. When that didn’t work he fabricated a story that evil outsiders were helping the people in the Bouncy Castles to mount a coup against his government. Using CBC (and other accommodating media) he created a national panic to suspend civil liberties in Canada. One hapless Corp bingo caller suggested they were Putin stooges.
When the enormity of this disgrace emerged, Trudeau fired up the public-owned jet, took his deputy PM, foreign affairs minister and a battery of cameras with him for a Cook’s Tour of war-torn Ukraine. The only danger he faced was overexposure as he lined up photo ops with embarrassed soldiers and politicians.
Trudeau took his glazed smile and stuck it into the lens so Canadians could see him rally NATO for Ukraine. Well, rally is a little strong. Trudeau is a go-cart while the other G-& leaders are F1 cars. The only person Trudeau rallied was his pilot.
The closest he or his coterie got to real fire was from a lonely CBC reporter who was under the impression his job was to ask questions to which Canadians wanted answers. Finance minister Freeland, grand-daughter of a Ukrainian Nazi sympathizer (she also bossed the financial freeze of the truckers and their donors), harrumphed, “No one is asking why we are here!” Oh yes there are, replied the intrepid reporter.
Reminded that U.S. president Joe Biden was running America’s Ukraine effort from the White House while they were ignoring Canada’s soaring gas prices and inflation numbers, minister Joly said the plebes could never understand the intricate minds of luminaries such as her. Later Joly showed her grasp on Canada’ history: “ “Canada is not a nuclear power, it is not a military power, we’re a middle-size power”. Canada is “good at convening” she said. When tone deafness is an Olympic sport this crew will win the gold medal hands-down.
So when you hear the GTA chorus retreating from its Liberal crush, remember, “You had an option” last fall. Just ask the late John Turner.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was 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 Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Bruce Dowbiggin
Eau Canada! Join Us In An Inclusive New National Anthem

This past week has seen (some) Canadians celebrating their heritage— now that Mike Myers has officially reinterpreted Canadian culture as a hockey sweater and Mr. Dressup. This quick-change was so popular that Canadian voters even forgot an entire decade of Justin Trudeau.
In the United States, the people who elected Donald Trump– and not Andrew Coyne– to run their nation celebrated Independence Day with stirring renditions off The Star Spangled Banner, although few could surpass the brilliant performance of the song by the late Whitney Houston at the 1991 Super Bowl.
The CDN equivalent is some flavour of the month changing the words to O Canada at the Grey Cup game. Canada’s national anthem has always been open to interpretation by people who may or may not have Canada in their hearts. At the 2023 NBA All Star Game Canadian chanteuse Jully Black became the latest singer to attempt a manicure to the English lyrics of O Canada, penned for the 1880 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony ( Calixa Lavallée composed the music, after which words were written by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The English lyrics have “evolved” over the years, just like the dress code for the CDN PM..)

Black amended the first line from “our home and native land” to our home ON native land”. Because something-something. But this creative license is nothing new. Unlike Chris Stapleton, Marvin Gaye or Whitney Houston with the Star Spangled Banner, interpreters of O Canada have seen fit to amend the lyrics to their sensibilities. Roger Doucet, famed anthem singer of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970-80s, tried to add the words “we stand on guard for truth and liberty” in place of the first “we stand on guard for thee”.
In 1990, having nothing better to do, Toronto City Council voted 12 to 7 in favour of recommending that the phrase “our home and native land” be changed to “our home and cherished land” and that “in all thy sons command” be partly reverted to “in all of us command”. (The latter was officially adapted.)
While those attempts had mixed outcomes it appears it’s just a matter of time till Ms. Black’s class-conscious culling of the words is accepted. Being generous we here at IDLM thought we’d short-circuit piecemeal attempts to create a throughly Woke version of the anthem that would last till the latest fad come along. Herewith our 2023 definitive O Canada that even— maybe only— Justin Trudeau could love:
“O Canada” (Ignores the French fact in our culture) Change to “Eau Canada”
“Our home on native land” (ignores indigenous land claims) Change to “Get off our land, settlers”
“True patriot love in all of us commands” (Only true patriot love? There were officially 78 kinds of relationships in Trudeaupia. And commanding love?) Change to “Love the one you’re with”.
“With glowing hearts we see thee rise” (rise suggests triumph of white triumphalist dogma) Change to “Non judgementally we oppose the crushing impacts of Euro-based autocracy”
“The true north strong and free” (How can anyone be strong or free when we support America’s killing fields?) Change to “Heteronormative thinking must be stamped out at our borders. If we even have borders anymore.”
“From far and wide” (Body shaming) Change to “Obesity is a disease that is not helped by putting it in the national anthem.”
“O Canada” (biased against A, B, AB blood types) change to “Science Must Be Believed”
“We stand on guard for thee” (Spreads hate against the non ableist community) Change to “Please remain seated.”
“God keep our land” (God? God? What is this, the Reformation) “Change to “It’s your thing”
”Glorious and free” (Glorious harkens to the bourgeois subjugation of Indigenous thought processes by white Christian priests) Change to “A genocidal state if there ever was one”.
“O Canada we stand on guard for thee/
O Canada we stand on guard for thee” The denial of trans rights is used twice here to emphasize the intolerable burdens faced by people of the LGBTQ2R community as they seek respect and compensation for the evils of the founding oppressors.) Change to “Eau Canada, after 6.5 hours of intensive lectures on the gender, race and dissociative application of class war on your citizens you may someday come to understand that this song is a manifestation of your bigotry and exploitation of minorities— and why rhyming lines like “thee and free” is the work of the devil or J.K. Rowling, whomever comes to mind first.”

There. That wasn’t so tough, was it? Flows trippingly off the tongue like Mark Carney refusing a special inquiry into China buying the electoral process. Or perhaps we should simply accept a literal translation of the original French lyrics:
“O Canada!
Land of our ancestors
Glorious deeds circle your brow
For your arm knows how to wield the sword
Your arm knows how to carry the cross;
Your history is an epic
Of brilliant deeds
And your valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights.”
Yikes. That’s downright fascistic. But it’s Quebec, and we have to allow them their peccadilloes. So circle your brow with glorious deeds, grab a cross and a sword and valour steeped in faith. And remember we must be adaptable in the new era.
Unless it’s Alberta using the adapting to fuel its CO2-belching machines. In which case it’s man the battlements and follow Mike Myers into the fight.
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.
Bruce Dowbiggin
Canada Day 2025: It’s Time For Boomers To Let The Kids Lead

So how did you spend your first Canada Day under new PM Mark Carney? If you’re CBC, freed from the clutches of Pierre Poilievere, you do a fawning interview with ex-pat comedian Mike Myers, whose Elbows Up appearance on Saturday Night Live and whose partisan hockey sweater appearance with Carney were pivotal moments in the recent election. (Saving CBC from drastic budget cuts— not that they mentioned it.)
After Donald Trump’s bellicose 51st state comments, Myers’ nostalgic harkening to the days of Gordie Howe and Mr. Dressup pivoted Boomers’ voter preferences in Canada. Soft Quebec sovereigntists petrified by Trump abandoned the Bloc for the Liberals. Progressives ditched the NDP for the Grits. And some wobbly Conservatives moved to Carney’s side, too, after the charm offensive by Myers, who hasn’t lived in Canada since the 1980s.

The result? Liberals vaulted 20 points in the polls and barely missed a majority in their fourth consecutive election win. Boomers were exultant. Their subsidized media was joyous. And the rest of the world asked if Canada was a serious country after the Libs naked substitution of Carney for the loathed Justin Trudeau. After all, hadn’t the U.S. Democrats tried the same thing and been summarily spanked by voters?
More to the point, had Canadian voters missed a great opportunity by sticking their heads in the ground on Chinese gangs using Canada as a drug launch pad, Canadian banks being fined billons for money laundering, immigration flooding social services, cratering GDP and Palestinian protests clogging the streets?
This at a time when the under-50 generation has lost faith in its destiny within Canada. As we wrote in March why are 43 percent of 18-36 male CDNs telling pollsters they would accept U.S. citizenship if they were guaranteed full rights and financial protections? Where upper-class products of liberal education— the future professional class— have taken to wearing keffiyehs to the convocations and demonstrations. Where housing is an unattainable goal in most major Canadian urban centres.
It’s not hard to see them looking at the Mike Myers obsession with a long-gone Canada and saying let’s get out of here. The signs are there. Recently former TVOntario host Steve Pakin attended two convocations. The first at the former Ryerson University, which switched its name 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.”

As we wrote in March Boomer nostalgia is a dead end. “It’s time that Canada’s aging elite ceded a greater voice in the national debate to younger voices. They need an intervention of the type Trump is now performing on Canadians addicted to sitting in first class but paying economy. He brought them into a room with the chairs and levelled with them about getting the free stuff they assumed was their right. Defence, security, trade, medical access. He’s the first president to do this in half a century.
And 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?” Because 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 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.
-
COVID-191 day ago
FDA requires new warning on mRNA COVID shots due to heart damage in young men
-
Business1 day ago
Carney’s new agenda faces old Canadian problems
-
Bruce Dowbiggin1 day ago
Eau Canada! Join Us In An Inclusive New National Anthem
-
Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum2 days ago
Alberta Sports Hall of Fame 2025 Inductee Profiles – Para Nordic Skiing – Brian and Robin McKeever
-
Crime2 days ago
News Jeffrey Epstein did not have a client list, nor did he kill himself, Trump DOJ, FBI claim
-
Indigenous1 day ago
Internal emails show Canadian gov’t doubted ‘mass graves’ narrative but went along with it
-
Crime1 day ago
Eyebrows Raise as Karoline Leavitt Answers Tough Questions About Epstein
-
Alberta1 day ago
COWBOY UP! Pierre Poilievre Promises to Fight for Oil and Gas, a Stronger Military and the Interests of Western Canada