Mic Drop: The Thought Police Are Coming To Take You Away

Graham Linehan, best known for co-creating genial British TV figure Father Ted, says he was arrested by five armed police officers the moment he landed at Heathrow Airport. The reason? Three tweets calling trans women “violent,” mocking a protest photo, and saying “I hate them.”

“I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to the hospital because the stress nearly killed me.”

Comic freedom? Welcome to modern Britain where the mic-drop moment is at His Majesty’s pleasure.

The chilling 2024 U.S. movie Civil War shows a fictional documentary news team as it crosses a dystopian America in the aftermath of societal breakdown. The film makers take pains not to engage in contemporary political issues. The schism has happened, and all that remains is bloody, pitiless anarchy. It ends in the White House with a cowering president barely hanging onto his authority.

The scenes of murder and torture are unrelenting. (Viewers will be excused if they turn to Happy Gilmore II instead.) But what was conjecture about the future in the spring of 2024 has become too close for comfort as, around the Western world, ruling elites cling desperately to privilege in the face of populist movements fed up with unlimited immigration, gender bending, self dealing and, as Linehan discovered, draconian censorship to protect the above.

Large recent demonstrations against entrenched authority have grown larger as leftist governments try to entrench the noblesse oblige captured by British Labour MP Bridget Phillipson’s assertion that “Yes, asylum seekers’ rights come first.” Here is the pushback in Ireland. Here is Australia. This is Britain. Here’s New Zealand. Even in rules-bound Japan the pushback is happening They are not outliers.

The issues vary, but at this point the demonstrations all have one common theme. It is the one Donald Trump currently exploits. It is not immigration, foreign wars, Ukraine, troops in the streets etc. It is the growing chasm between the privileged and the ordinary citizen. Between young and old. He took that anger all the way to the White House. Twice.

Civil War hints broadly at this anger without citing specific issues. In the non-cinematic world, the simmering rage created by the handling of Covid lockdowns (in 2022 CNN declared the vaccine 100 percent effective in 18-24 year olds ) and vaccines between 2019-2023 was the flashpoint for many apolitical citizens in the U.S. and other nations where the virus was used to render traditional rights and freedoms obsolete.

It stunningly moved Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to partner with the demon Trump. The U.S. mainstream media tried to ignore them, propping up a demented Joe Biden and fostering the performative Jussie Smollett to Hunter Biden’s laptop. It further established them as tools of the privileged. The smear impact was similar in other nations. As Linehan has learned Britain may be the closest to a civil conflict as its permanently Woke Labour government is greasing the skids for Sharia law in the near future.

But they’re hardly unique. The two sides of the West are beyond speaking terms. Here, leftist members of the French Parliament do the snob turn, refusing to shake hands with a member of Marine Le Pen’s party. Hollywood doesn’t miss a day without demonizing MAGA. But with populist right-wing governments now running Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland, Poland and Hungary plus electoral breakthroughs in Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Britain, the populist wave in Europe is undeniable.

Strangely immune from this looming trend is Canada’s ruling minority Liberals. Here’s Trudeau groomsman and cabinet place holder Sean Fraser. issuing the all-clear. “This isn’t the Wild West. It’s Canada.” All Canada needs apparently is more tender ministrations from Carney’s army. Elbows mUp, dudes.

As we noted in the spring election campaign, the Liberals won by ignoring the under-50 demographic while placating white urban Boomers with the spectre of Orange Man Bad. Trump had made the mistake of telling Trudeau/ Carney that, after their efforts, the nation’s stock is so low internationally on multiple fronts that it would be better off as a U.S. state.

For Canadians still reading their 1980s copies of Macleans and watching Knowlton Nash this was a heresy. True, but a heresy. Led by vituperative cries of “fascism” from Andrew Coyne they’re still blaming POTUS 45/47 for the collapse of Canada under a tidal wave of immigration, money laundering and climate lunacy.

Reports Sam Cooper: “Trump and US law enforcement agencies know exactly what’s happening in Canada. So when the RCMP blocked the DEA from investigating fentanyl networks located here, it was just another nail in our coffin” Others have, like Trump, noticed that the Canada of hockey and equalization payments is not the Canada of the present. Here’s Joe Rogan saying he’s now changed his mind about ever moving to Canada.

Some, like noted Canadian Malcolm Gladwell, are finally waking up to the pressure of his nation’s sanctimony. Gladwell is now recanting his support for trans athletes in women’s sports. He says he was cowed into saying so. In fact, you can be arrested for hate speech in Trudeau/ Carney Canada if you follow Gladwell’s example. He now lives in NYC.

It would be understandable if no one had warned that their infatuation with Woke would catch up. But Canadian writer Mark Steyn foretold today’s insanity. “It was “a decade this summer since I mused on the ill-advised masses eschewing the well-advised Jeb and Hillary for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The response of the ‘lunatic mainstream’ has been, in France, Germany, the United States and elsewhere, to attempt to criminalise its opposition…

“… the history of our time is that the mainstream is lunatic, which is why, in any recognizable sense, both North America and western Europe are on the brink of the abyss.”

An abyss that the West’s elites— particularly in Canada— refuse to acknowledge, preferring the dewey dawn of the Clinton or Obama presidencies. They toss around terms like tyrant to distract from the cliff they’ve built. They pose. They primp. As security expert Mike Benz notes, “The vast majority of stock leftists are not true believers, they have strong beliefs, loosely held.”

So batten the hatches. Sharia reality is at the door and it’s got a search warrant for your culture.

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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Bruce Dowbiggin

www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com

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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Carney Hears A Who: Here Comes The Grinch

Bruce Dowbiggin / 4 days ago

Wayne Gretzky’s Terrible, Awful Week.. And Soccer/ Football.

Bruce Dowbiggin / 4 days ago

Integration Or Indignation: Whose Strategy Worked Best Against Trump?

Bruce Dowbiggin

Carney Hears A Who: Here Comes The Grinch

Published on December 11, 2025

Bruce Dowbiggin

It’s a big day for the Who’s of Whoville. Mayor Augustus Maywho is now polling at 62 percent approval. Cindy Lou Who and Martha May Whovier can barely contain their trans-loving heart that finally the Pierre The Grinch is done.

Okay it’s not WhoVille. It’s Canada and it is leader Mark Carney who’s zooming in the polls against Pierre Poilievre. But it might as well be the real nation that Carney commands today. As 2025 comes to a conclusion Donald Trump seems the least of Whoville’s perils. For example:

The NDP government in B.C. has now declared that future legislation must be interpreted through the lens of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. According to Chief Bent Knee (David Eby) this means that the province cannot act independently of the progressive diktats of Sudan, Nepal, Moldova and other international titans. Having been informed of Canada’s “genocidal” behaviour by Trudeau in the Rez Graves pantomime, the UN folk will no doubt look on Canadians as worthy of punishment.

The UNDRIP menace has been around since the days when Skippy Trudeau was wielding the mace in Parliament. On June 20, 2021 the federal government passed UNDRIP into law by a vote of 210 to 118. (The Liberals, NDP and Bloc all voted in favour.) The only party that opposed it were the Conservatives. In defence of those hapless boobs none of them voting yes ever expected a province to align itself with such legislation. That’s the Canadian way. Act on conscience. Retract on self preservation.

But on the heels of Eby’s unopposed capitulation to B.C.’s many “peoples” in recent land settlements, ones that threaten the legal right to properties of home owners, the wholesale framework for governing the province now will be determined by appeal to the UN.

The Carney crew — who act as though Canada’s indigenous communities are now equal partners in Confederation— assure Canadians that judicious lawyering by government savants has everything under control, but anyone trusting the Liberals after the past decade is in need of counselling.

The B.C. conundrum plays into another of the challenges (read: disasters) faced in B.C. by the Elbows Up brigade. Namely the much-heralded memorandum of understanding on energy policy between the feds and Alberta. Canadians were assured by Ottawa that this federal government sees pipelines as a priority, and getting Alberta’s product to tidewater as an urgent infrastructure need. Carney described the MOU as if it were a love-letter to the restless West. How is he going to get pipelines through to the B.C. coast when Eby and the indigenous said it was a no-go? Trust us, said Carney.

Before you could say Wetaskiwin dark clouds gathered on the deal. Smith took it in the ear from Alberta separatists for compromising anything to the feds. Carney, meanwhile, ran into the predictable roadblock from B.C. Eby talked of maybe allowing pipelines in the future, but the ban on shipping off the province’s shoreline was verboten.

To test the resilience of the MOU the federal Conservatives (remember them?) put forward a motion to build the pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast. Even though the motion used the same language of the MOU between Danielle Smith and Mark Carney, the Liberals and their hand maidens defeated the motion. Carney himself abstained because, hey look at that shiny object.

Immediately the Trudeaupian Deflection Shield was employed. Here’s Liberal Indigenous Service minister and proud Cree operative Mandy Gull Masty “Today’s motion that’s being put on the floor is not a no vote for the MOU. It’s a no vote against the Conservatives playing games and creating optics and wasting parliamentary time when they should be voting on things that are way more important.”

Robert Fife, the highly rated G&M scribbler who just won some big award, led the media pack, “Conservatives persist with cute legislative tricks, while the government tries to run a country.” Run a country? Into the ground?

Let’s not forget the $1.5 billion bloviators at CBC. They, too, say the vote is a big loss for the Tories. “It risks putting them offside, what is a very top priority and frankly, was considered a big win for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.’” said Janyce McGregor. Here’s Martin Patriquin on one of the Ceeb’s endless panels. “It’s embarrassing, man. I don’t see any sort of political advantage to what happened today.”

Embarrassing? The Libs have committed to re-building gas pipelines in Ukraine, even as they stall on developing pipelines in Canada. Luckily CBC washrooms have no mirrors. And there’s always Donald Trump to deflect from the pantomimes of Canadians Laurentian debating club.

Here, CTV hair-and-teeth Scott Reid is nursing a Reuters poll that has Trump’s approval at historic lows of 36 percent. Reuters is a firm that predicted Kamala winning the presidency. Until she didn’t on Nov.4. Meanwhile Rasmussen, which correctly had Trump ahead the entire campaign, has his current approval at 44 percent while the RCP average is 43.9.

But corrupt data to make Trump seem odious is no sin in WhoVille Ottawa. Keep feeding the Karens bad data. At least Canadians have their beloved healthcare to fall back on. Or maybe their beloved MAID. A Saskatchewan woman suffering from parathyroid disease has revealed that she is considering assisted suicide, because she cannot get the surgery she needs.

“Jolene Van Alstine, from Saskatchewan, has extreme bone pain, nausea and vomiting. She requires surgery to remove a remaining parathyroid, but no surgeons in the province are able to perform the operation. In order to be referred to another province for the operation, Van Alstine must first be seen by an endocrinologist, yet no Saskatchewan endocrinologists are currently accepting new patients.

The pain has become so unbearable that she has been approved for Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide program, with the ending of her life scheduled to take place on 7 January 2026.”

Well. Happy New Year, Canada. May no one offer you MAID in the next twelve months.

Bruce Dowbiggin

Wayne Gretzky’s Terrible, Awful Week.. And Soccer/ Football.

Published on December 8, 2025

Bruce Dowbiggin

Inquiring minds want to know: Why did FIFA (Federation of International Fraud Artists) award American president Donald Trump a new “Peace Prize” at the Washington D.C. draw for the June/ July tournament? The usual suspects are paralyzed with rage. Everyone else is laughing at the kabuki theatre stunt.

The short answer is that if you were FIFA and you were receiving a reported billion or more dollars from the U.S. and the Canadian/ Mexican cities hosting the 48-team tournament you’d give the host more than a bottle of wine and flowers as a thank-you. Thus the ugly statue and the Boy Scout medal. The obsequious awarding of the prize and match medal were proportionate to the greed of FIFA in extorting the cash.

(America’s fainting goat media immediately complained about unearned awards for little virtue, forgetting as usual that the Nobel folks gave Barack Obama a Peace Prize after nine months in the White House for simply being a black man.)

Trump getting a peace award from FIFA, the most corrupt sports body in the sports world, is mint, however. You can’t write this stuff. (They should give it to him on a speed boat heading across the Caribbean.) The Donald then playfully suggested that Americans leave the name football to the soccer folks because, you know… feet and a ball. More outrage from NFL fans.

So what was the gift for the two Canadian cities hosting games who have also coughed up plenty? Toronto says its estimated budget is $380 million for six games/ B.C. tax payers are obliged to cough up an estimated $580 million for Vancouver’s five games). For cities with, how shall we say, bigger fish to fry.

Sadly all they got was a little farce in which a delighted PM Mark Carney was allowed to Canada as the first ball to start the picking, evidently unaware that all the balls he had to select from also said Canada. Carney’s joy was tempered when he saw Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum draw a ball that said “Mexico” while Trump— in on the fix— got one entitled “United States”.

In a final attempt to curry favour with the fleeced nations FIFA boss Gianni Infantino gathered the world leaders for a painful onstage selfie, marking the first time Trump and Sheinbaum had ever met in the (orangey) flesh. Call it National Lampoon’s Soccer Vacation.

Having exhausted itself with the peace prize falderol FIFA evidently forgot to put any more thought into the rest of the 55-minute run-up to the draw. While soccer/ footie fans around the world ground their teeth in impatience the organizers presented a combination Eurovision/ People’s choice Awards ordeal of failed cues, untranslated interviews (the Spanish translator showed up about 30 minutes late) and pregnant pauses.

Host Heidi Klum’s stunning gold dress nearly made up for her wooden repartee with comedian Kevin Hart (“not sure why I’m here”) and co-host Rio Ferdinand, former star English defender who, alas, never won the WC. But that was all an appetizer for the real low point, the introduction of global brand stars to pick the draw. NFL legend Tom Brady, NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal and NHL… er, player Wayne Gretzky.

Their task, hectored by the hosts, was to draw a ball, unscrew the thing, withdraw a nation’s name and so on. While there may have been some tension in the audience there was no appreciation of that on the screen as more clunking dialogue and curious pronunciations (Ferdinand kept referring to Group “Haitch”) landed dead on the floor.

The nadir of the ceremony—indeed of his career— was Gretzky’s contribution. Brady and O’Neal had managed to survive their task of unscrewing the ball and pronouncing a name, but Gretzky was brought low by the stage business of the balls and the nations he was forced to announce.

The clearly flustered Gretz (he insisted he’d practiced all morning) wrestled manfully with the balls. Finally the producers went with a long shot of him fumbling in the dark. Then he topped that. Gretzy apparently thinks there are countries called “North Mack-a-donia” and “Cur-ack-ow.” Other stabs at geography were almost as tortured.

Bitter Canadians could put up with him sucking up to Trump (he was mentioned as being in the crowd at the DC Xmas tree lighting) but failing geography is unforgivable. The week that started with Gretzky in a photo golfing at POTUS’s Jupiter, Florida, golf course was ending with him pummelled for his abuse of nations with different-sounding names. The Wayne Gretzky Center For Kids Who Want To Talk Good.

The moral: Never send a centre to do a netminder’s job. Makes you understand why Bobby Orr has laid low since his Trump endorsement came out.

With that bracing date with immortality disposed of the draw proceeded. We had been pounded for an hour about how great the tournament was, and finally footy fans got what they wanted. As a host Canada got a bye into the field. Their reward is playing the tenacious Swiss and, gulp, probably Italy, which is forced to qualify after playing with their food for too long. (Insert your Stanley Tucci joke.)

If not Italy then one of Wales, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Northern Ireland. Oh, right Qatar is in there too as fodder. Been nice knowing you, Canada. The Americans somehow drew a creme puff quartet of Australia, Paraguay and Slovakia, Kosovo, Turkey or Romania. Money can’t buy you love, but it can get you a warm hug from FIFA.

In the end it’ll be one of Brazil, Argentina, Germany or France for the final in the NJ Meadowlands on July 19. Maybe they’ll have a spelling bee at halftime. Or maybe they’ll bring back Trump for the final game to give him another peace prize. Just don’t ask Gretzky to announce Lothar Matthaus, Bruno Guimaräes or Gabriel Magalhäes.