Bruce Dowbiggin
Snobs & Yobs: How Canadian Media Made Themselves The Convoy Story
In case you missed it, the most compelling story to emerge from the #Convoy2022 was the disrespect shown to Canada’s media covering the event. Just ask them. While the stalemate dragged on, heart-wrenching stories of reporters scorned and told to “get lost” dominated the feed of the Media Party. One Radio-Canada stalwart was actually shoved live on-air. Gasp.
It was poignant to hear how people supported by government handouts bravely did the jobs reporters have done for ages without complaint. They were the stars of their coverage, and we were going to hear about it. (Right on cue the hapless Toronto media lifted the flag of Press Infallibility, calling the harassment a national disgrace. pace G & M TV critic. )
No one had had the heart to tell the ladies, gentlemen and others of the press before the event that a large portion of the population now dismisses them as mouthpieces for the prime minister and his coterie of WEF followers. Even though their ratings had cratered and their influence disappeared it was business as usual in the minds of CBC, CTV, Global and the titans of the printed word.
They were brave, intrepid warriors wandering like Diogenes, searching for the flickering light of truth amongst the protesters. Doing a dirty job for all the world to see their courage. Even as they carried #PMJT water about swastikas, white power, KKK and national threats they took a bow at their own courage. It’s hard to think how this could be more out of touch, but we’re sure they’ll find a way.
This just in: They hate you. No one cares. Do your job.
Sarcasm aside, the descent of the media’s credibility— already crumbled— plunged faster than the bobsleighs at the Beijing Olympics. They ignored the PM’s salvo against truckers that started the debacle— “‘antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia and transphobia that we’ve seen in display.’ “— to concentrate their scorn on the horn-honking rabble who came to sully the Glebe, Centretown and Sandy Hill. They were, the words of Andrew Coyne, “Yobs”.
The crisis moment arrived when the police advanced on protesters on Friday. CBC and CTV locked off their cameras to focus solely on the fray. Former police officials from across the nation were deputized as “experts” to cover the clashes. They pronounced the police reluctance to use force— in the words of Liberal MP Mark Gerretson— as the “gold standard”.
Then the damned New York Times broke the spell. The Parnassus to Canadian journalists reported that police had advanced with guns drawn. Immediately CBC grandee Carol Off denounced the Times’ story. Then video appeared showing—oops— a squad of cops arresting a man in a van at gunpoint. The Times then lectured their “see no evil” junior cousins on how to cover a riot. How embarrassing.
Okay, it happens. Anyone can get a story wrong once in a while. But, we were assured by Canadian media, the rest of the police work was impeccable. Sadly, CBC and its colleagues forgot that this is the age of citizen journalists. Despite police attempts to keep prying eyes away from the “battle zone” the police gold-standard myth was exposed by private citizens and Rebel Media.
Footage showed police viciously kneeing and assaulting a Romanian immigrant driver as he lay trapped on the ground (only Fox’s Tucker Carlson interviewed him). Video showed cops using similar WWE tactics in other parts of the lines. In another segment heavily protected cops shoved a woman and tossed her phone to the ground as they threatened her with arrest.
Most egregious, an indigenous woman, run over in her wheelchair by a formation of mounted police, was taken to hospital for her injuries. (Remember #PMJT said this was a white-power protest) This assault only came to light as a denial of rumours she’d died. Which was made worse when an RCMP private chat room showed Mounties laughing at the woman being ridden over and promising to do the same when called up for duty. With no rebuke from #PMJT.
The point is not did cops have physical encounters with demonstrators. These things happen when cops engage unarmed but unruly demonstrators. The point is the snow job performed by CBC/ CTV/ Global and their colleagues on any of this, instead interviewing and congratulating friendly cops and themselves on escaping danger.
Even after video rebutted the narrative of brave reporters and heroic cops, it was repeated— without media correction— by Liberal MPs in the parliamentary debate the networks ignored for almost three days. Liberals seemed to conflate defiance in the face of @CBCNews / @CTVNews interviewers with assault.
Journalistic assault is reporting the Liberals’ fake stories about swastikas, condo fires, Putin influence, cenotaph clearing and property destruction without corroboration. Or having no recall of previous indigenous blockades of rail lines, the “Occupy” movement in many cities, the never-ending siege of Caledonia, etc. All of which lasted months, not weeks. No ther Convoy was unprecedented.
Media had no curiosity about who was carrying swastikas and Confederate flags among the protesters (anyone interview any of them?)— even after they were kicked out by the demonstrators. Instead the media disgraced itself further when an illegally hacked list of donors to the Convoy was printed by media. The suddenly curious Jimmy Olsens published it, then left no stone unturned to find a lady making a $50 donation in BC.
Make no mistake, the past three weeks were about one thing for MSM journos: covering #PMJT’s fatal error in underestimating the Convoy movement. Everything— enlisting media, inventing alt-right threats, false flags and now martial law— was to protect his leadership and reputation with his globalist cousins.
Example: Did anyone grill him on the real terrorism on the pipeline that weekend? Twenty people with axes? Setting fire to vehicles with people inside them? No? Anyone doing their jobs?
There were some reporters who brooked the urge to go all-in on the narratives. CBC Radio’s Evan Dyer tried to bring perspectives to what’s involved in reporting a riot. David Common kept his cool. And CTV’s Evan Solomon attempted to push back on the size of the threat and ask pointed questions. For the rest, it was demonize the demonstrators, not the PM. Burnish their own halos for surviving an “occupation”.
When you see such Media Party enterprise journalism remember that they’re not writing stories for the public or their bosses or even Trudeau. They’re writing to impress each other. Bragging rights in the morning story meeting is the gold medal. (Just ask Wendy Mesley what happens when you diverge from the party line in story meetings.) Hell, they brag on air about how good they are.
And nothing got bigger props than building up the Liberals now-cancelled Emergencies Act by raking the truckers’ incursion on NIMBY Ottawans. As Kelly McParland of the National Post writes, “The belief that Liberalism is Canada, and any criticism is unCanadian and unacceptable may be the defining quality of this government.”
While Canadian reporters blissfully back-patted each other, their peers outside Canada were less impressed with the comfy-pillow treatment of Trudeau. Here’s the NY Times shooting holes in the media’s demonizing of the truckers’ behaviour: “They have a right to be noisy and even disruptive. Protests are a necessary form of expression in a democratic society, particularly for those whose opinions do not command broad popular support.”
Here’s the Wall Street Journal on Trudeau’s enormous gaffe imposing martial law.. Here’s the Financial Times, the voice of British business, on the faux-Emergency act. “The measures are designed to respond to insurrection, espionage and genuine threats to the Canadian Constitution rather than peaceful protest, no matter how irritating and inconvenient,” Here’s Piers Morgan on Trudeau’s strategy that went unchallenged in his purchased media.
Even the EU took time from its Ukraine threat. Cristian Terhes, a member of the European Parliament, declared that Canada’s prime minister was acting “exactly like a tyrant, a dictator. If you raise doubts about the vaccines, you’re outcast.” Yobs, indeed.
For an independent press this upbraiding of their coverage would be embarrassing. Coming from a press that is fulsomely rewarded by the ruling government it was an existential failure.
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
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.
With the Americans winning the first game 3-1, a sense of panic crept over Canada as it headed to Game 2 in Boston. Losing a political battle with Trump was bad enough, but losing hockey bragging rights heading into a federal election was catastrophic for the Family Compact.
“It’s also more political than the (1972) Summit Series was, because Canada’s existence wasn’t on the line then, and it may be now. You’re damn right Canadians should boo the (U.S.) anthem.” Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur before Gm. 1 of USA/ Canada in The 4 Nations Cup.
The year 2025 is barely half over on Canada Day. There is much to go before we start assembling Best Of Lists for the year. But as Palestinian flags duel with the Maple Leaf for prominence on the 158th anniversary of Canada’s becoming a sovereign country it’s a fair guess that we will settle on Febuary 21 as the pivotal date of the year— and Canada’s destiny as well.
That was the date of Game 2 in the U.S./Canada rivalry at the Four Nations Tournament. Ostensibly created by the NHL to replace the moribund All Star format, the showdown of hockey nations in Boston became much more. Jolted by non-sports factors it became a pivotal moment in modern Canadian history.
Set against U.S. president Donald Trump’s bellicose talk of Canada as a U.S. state and the Mike Myers/ Mark Carney Elbows Up ad campaign, the gold-medal game evoked, for those of a certain age, memories of the famous 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR. And somehow produced an unprecedented political reversal in Canadian elections.
As we wrote on Feb. 16 after Gm. 1 in Montreal, the Four Nations had been meant to be something far less incendiary. “Expecting a guys’ weekend like the concurrent NBA All Star game, the fraternal folks instead got a Pier Six brawl. It was the most stunning beginning to a game most could remember in 50 years. (Not least of all the rabid Canadian fanbase urging patriotism in the home of Quebec separation) Considering this Four Nations event was the NHL’s idea to replace the tame midseason All Star Game where players apologize for bumping into each other during a casual skate, the tumult as referees tried to start the game was shocking.
“Despite public calls for mutual respect, the sustained booing of the American national anthem and the Team Canada invocation by MMA legend Georges St. Pierre was answered by the Tkachuck brothers, Matthew and Brady, with a series of fights in the first nine seconds of the game. Three fights to be exact ,when former Canuck J.T. Miller squared up with Brandon Hagel. (All three U.S. players have either played on or now play for Canadian NHL teams.)
“Premeditated and nasty. To say nothing of the vicious mugging of Canada’s legend Sidney Crosby behind the U.S. net moments later by Charlie McEvoy.”
With the Americans winning the game 3-1 on Feb. 15, a sense of panic crept over Canada as it headed to Game 2 in Boston. Losing a political battle with Trump was bad enough, but losing hockey bragging rights heading into a federal election was catastrophic for the Family Compact. As we wrote in the aftermath, a slaughter was avoided.
“In the rematch for a title created just weeks before by the NHL the boys stuck to hockey. Anthem booing was restrained. Outside of an ill-advised appearance by Wayne Gretzky— now loathed for his Trump support— the emphasis was on skill. Playing largely without injured Matthew and Brady Tkachuk and McAvoy, the U.S. forced the game to OT where beleaguered goalie Craig Binnington held Canada in the game until Connor McDavid scored the game winner. “
The stunning turnaround in the series produced a similar turnaround in the Canadian federal election. Galvanized by Trump’s 51st State disrespect and exhilarated by the hockey team’s comeback, voters switched their votes in huge numbers to Carney, ignoring the abysmal record of the Liberals and their pathetic polling. From Pierre Poilievre having a 20-point lead in polls, hockey-besotted Canada flipped to award Carney a near-majority in the April 28 election.
The result stunned the Canadian political class and international critics who questioned how a single sporting event could have miraculously rescued the Liberals from themselves in such a short time.
While Canada soared because of the four Nations, a Canadian icon crashed to earth. “Perhaps the most public outcome was the now-demonization of Gretzky in Canada. Just as they had with Bobby Orr, another Canadian superstar living in America, Canadians wiped their hands of No. 99 over politics. Despite appeals from Orr, Don Cherry and others, the chance to make Gretzky a Trump proxy was too tempting.
We have been in several arguments on the subject among friends: Does Gretzky owe Canada something after carrying its hockey burden for so long? Could he have worn a Team Canada jersey? Shouldn’t he have made a statement that he backs Canada in its showdown with Trump? For now 99 is 0 in his homeland.”
Even now, months later, the events of late February have an air of disbelief around them, a shift so dramatic and so impactful on the nation that many still shake their heads. Sure, hockey wasn’t the device that blew up Canada’s politics. But it was the fuse that created a crater in the country.
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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