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Bruce Dowbiggin

The Just Transition: Alberta Bound & Gagged

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Imagine being told that, despite your happiness in your current home, you need to move into a new type of house, full of untried, unsustainable technology. That’s the Just Transition. Or the Justin Transfer. Or Searching For Gas Guffman.

Whatever you call it, the federal government’s plan to hollow out Alberta’s energy industry by paying for roughnecks to transition to social-media influencers is a hand grenade lobbed into the run-up to two key elections.

The Just Transition feeds perfectly into the rationale for Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s sovereignty legislation, the suspicion that, unless Trudeau is restrained, he will turn the province’s economy— energy production represents 27.3 per cent of Alberta’s economy— into a novelty shop at the Calgary Stampede midway.

It is also presents Smith with a legitimate wedge issue to hammer NDP leader— and former premier— Rachel Notley as they head to a spring showdown. With her federal NDP cousins in connubial bliss in Ottawa with Trudeau, Notley must now abandon a habit of limp defence of fossil fuels to be seen as resisting the feds at the gate. Or risk being viewed as weak on the home front as May’s provincial election arrives.

Smith, too, might be vulnerable if her resistance to Justin’s easy federal money for citizens be seen as principled to a fault. Sure, the money started its life in the Oil Patch before being re-routed by the federal equalization purse. But to wobbly undecideds in Calgary and Edmonton saying no to helping a transition from fossil fuels to “TBA technologies” could be interpreted as churlish.

For Trudeau, who this past week snubbed Scott Moe, the premier of another fossil-fuel province, the Just Transfer represents a no-lose gamble for a politician who needs every advantage he can wrangle. He’s going to go 0-fer Alberta/ Saskatchewan/ eastern BC when he gets around to dropping the writ, likely this fall.

So, he sees no downside to using Alberta as a whipping post for his devotedly Woke base in the Central Canada. Making Alberta the evil anchor that’s holding back the sailing of the good ship Green Economy will find willing ears in the urban progressive sinks of the 613, 416 and 613. (At worst he loses the election, falls into the loving embrace of the WEF crowd and he surfs off to Tofino.)

Yes, the Just Transition was a stink bomb to drop— especially when delivered by three federal ministers with zero connection to the West. In most respects you couldn’t have made it more disrespectful to the industry that has kept the lights on in Canada’s economy this century.

So you can understand that Notley is less-than-impressed with the unwanted plan that scuppers her soft-power agenda in Alberta. This is her last, best chance to regain the premier’s seat. If she can’t ride these favourable winds—polling shows her leading Smith by a comfortable majority—  she’ll be considered like Ontario’s Andrea Howarth, an NDP politician past her best-before date.

You could tell just how vexing the dilemma was by the fact that Notley took 15 days to respond to Trudeau’s provocation. She had to find the right line— in the right time— to make room for herself between the PM and the premier. Room the Alberta voters— particularly the women’s vote in Calgary— are comfortable voting for.

While saying unconditionally that Ottawa must scrap the Just Transfer and the 42 per cent cut in emissions from 2019 levels by 2030, Notley tried to blame Smith’s Sovereignty Act for stirring up the population. “We are in what I would describe as a crisis right now, in that we have a federal government about to move forward on legislation that has wide-ranging consequences, particularly to the people of Alberta,” Notley said.

“And we are in that crisis position because of the incompetence and chaos and conflict that is constantly being generated by the UCP government… The federal government by no means gets away with no blame, but neither does the provincial government.”

Notley added that making the plan public just three months before the provincial election ramps up is unacceptable. On that she and Smith are in agreement. Where the PM has never met a tax he didn’t like to increase, Albertans would like to discuss just how and why they are going to be tapped. For instance, their oil industry— struggling to compete with its American neighbours— would like to see incentives used to increase carbon sequestration, among other things. Prefacing the industry’s transition from fossil fuels to unsustainable wind and solar is not the way to respond to those pressing issues.

Reg Manhas, a Canadian now working in Texas, told The National Post that Trudeau’s government-led plans are leaving Canada far behind. “Yes, there are corporate imperatives to reduce carbon, to get to net zero, globally, but where the action is and the deals are being struck is the U.S.”

He sees Smith’s controversial sovereignty act as a cry for equality within Canada, something he doesn’t face now he’s in Texas. “The sovereignty issue in Alberta has always been bubbling under the surface, and has to do with perceptions of fairness within Confederation… Texas prides itself on individualism, on being an independent and strong state within the country, but there isn’t the same sense of unfairness…”

Both Notley and Smith agree that, once again, Ottawa is being capricious with Alberta. Its might end up be there only thing they agree upon for a long while.

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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

 

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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2025 Federal Election

The Last Of Us: Canada’s Chaos Election

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Show me good loser and I’ll show you a loser— Leo Durocher

There’s an expression that goes, you’re not allowed to die until all the people in your life have disappointed you. That trenchant observation is particularly relevant to those who woke up on April 29 to discover that their neighbours and friends in Canada have opted to give the federal Liberals (under new leader Mark Carney) another four years to continue Canada’s descent into irrelevance.

These are the same Liberals sans Carney who were polling in the low 20s six months earlier. Their cabinet members were quitting in droves. In the finest Wag The Dog tradition, a sure victory for Canada’s Conservatives was then transformed into a humiliating defeat that saw the Tories leader Pierre Poilievre lose the seat he’d represented for 20 years. The debate in the chattering classes now is how much was Poilievre’s fault?

In a minor vindication the Liberals were seemingly denied a majority by three seats (169-144) . How they balance that equation to advance their pet projects on trade, climate, gender, free speech, native rights and Donald Trump was unknowable Which is why the Grits have turned to dumpster diving MPs like Elizabeth May and keffiyeh-clad NDP to achieve a workable majority..

Suffice to say that neophyte Carney, without any support system within the Liberals, is being highly influenced by the Justin Trudeau faculty lounge left behind after the disgraced three-term PM slunk off into the night.

It’s not all beer and skittles. No sooner had the Liberal pixie dust settled than Carney was hit with Bloc leader Yves-Francois  Blanchet announced unequivocally that energy pipelines were still a no-go in electrified Quebec. Alberta premier Danielle Smith lowered the requirement for a separation referendum from 600 K signatures to around 170 K— a very doable mark in pissed-off Alberta.

Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe outlined his demands on Carney if his province is not to join Alberta. And former British PM Tony Blair, who’d worked with Carney in the UK, announced that Carney’s pet project Net Zero was a loser for nations. Finally RBC revealed it was moving beyond diversity toward “inclusion” by removing “unconscious bias” among its upper ranks.

Such is the backwash from April 28. If you listened to the state-supported media on election night you might think that Trump had picked on poor, innocent friend next door Canada. His outrageous 51st state jest did send the Canadian political apparatus into panic. A Liberal party that proclaimed Canada a postmodern state with no real traditions (lowerering flags to half mast for six months to promote their Rez School genocide hustle) suddenly adopted the flag-waving ultra-patriotic visage of expatriate comedian Mike Myers.

Instead the commentariat was spitballing about how to make the House of Commons function more smoothly or if Carney should depart for Europe immediately or in a month to meet his true constituents in the EU commentariat. China? Wassat’? Urban crime? I can’t hear you. Canada as fentanyl capital of the West? Not interested.

Astonishingly, many people who should know better bought it. It was Boomers waking from a long nap to impose their cozy values one final time on the nation they’d created via Trudeau. Comfy ridings like Oakville, Burlington, North Vancouver, Ottawa Centre and Charlottetown mailed it in for another four years. Academic hotbeds like Western (London), Laurier (Kitchener),  Waterloo, UNB (Fredericton),  U Calgary (Confederation) Alberta (Strathcona) and UBC (Vancouver) also kept the radical dream alive.

Meanwhile shrieks of “Panic!” over Trump decimated the Bloc (22 seats) and the NDP (7 seats) with their support transferred to a banker-led party that had been poison to them only six months earlier. You could not have written a more supportive script for a party who had neglected the essentials in traditional Canada while pursuing radical policies to please the globalists of the West.

Speaking of time capsules, you’d have been hard-pressed to find a more retro scene than the one produced by the legacy TV networks. With their emphasis on the horse-race story the tone, the panels, the hosts could have easily been teleported from 1990s. While many were interested in the micro of government finance, most listeners were expecting maybe a word or two on the collapsed state exposed by Trump’s aggressive negotiating.

As we’ve mentioned often before, Canada’s allies are appalled by the takeover of the country by malign actors, drugs traffickers, money launderers, real-estate manipulators and Chinese subterfuge. Trump’s generic reference to the border was a catch-all for the corruption swallowing the election process and the finance of the country.

That avoidance was echoed by pollsters who spent the night talking about how the final figures reflected their findings. Except for those that didn’t— Conservatives vote tally over 41 percent and Liberals well under 200 seats. What was avoided was the cumulative effect of highly inflated Liberal polling during the campaign, the “why-bother?” narrative they sold to voters appalled by the Liberals manipulation of the process to switch leaders and hold a micro-campaign of 36 days.

While Donald Trump has announced he’ll work with Carney on tariffs, it’s still highly likely that this was the final Canadian election fought by the old rules where the have-nots (Atlantic Canada) the haves-but-outraged (Quebec) and the indolent (Ontario) control the math for making government. The money pump (Alberta, Saskatchewan) will seek to attract eastern BC and southern Manitoba to their crew. In the worst case Carney may be the nation’s final PM of ten provinces plus territories.

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. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Mistrial Declared in Junior Hockey Assault Trial. What Now?

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With all the Elbows Up election idiocy you can be forgiven for missing the news this past week that the trial of five former members of the 2018 men’s gold-medal winning Team Canada hockey team was declared a mistrial just a day into the proceedings. The five have all plead not guilty.

On Friday the judge ordered a new jury be empanelled after a half day of evidence in the trial of the players who are accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room in 2018 in London, Ont. Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia has not released the reasons she halted the trial. It comes after outrage over a civil settlement between the victim and Hockey Canada in 2020 forced authorities to pursue the criminal charges.

The graphic nature of the evidence so far promises dramatic testimony should the trial go its full length. Thoughts that one of the quintet might accept a plea deal to roll over on his former teammates— a goal of the police and prosecution— have so far been unrealized. It is expected that the victim will testify.

The low-profile start to the trial in the case is a contrast with the front-page treatment it received after excellent reporting from Katie Strang of The Athletic and Rick Westhead of TSN. At the time the charges were announced in 2024, Michael McLeod and Cal Foote were with the New Jersey Devils, Dillon Dubé was with the Calgary Flames and Carter Hart was with the Philadelphia Flyers. Alex Formenton had been signed by the Ottawa Senators but was playing in Switzerland.

The sensation was amplified by the role of Hockey Canada in the civil case, using funds to pay off the victim. Parliamentary hearings and front-page headlines added to the impact.

As we wrote in January of 2024, the hysteria encouraged the usual radicals to denigrate the national sport. “For the same reason that some think guns kill people, the toffs believe that hockey itself causes outbreaks of macho sexual behaviour. These people cheer for Sweden when it plays Canada because… Canadian hockey is just too down-market for them. Sweaty guys. Cold rinks. Meritocracy. Ick!

“We should clarify here that we mean men’s hockey. Womens’ hockey is not included in the loathing. In fact, metrosexuals from PM Justin Trudeau on down worship the wholesome new PWHL. Skippy recently gave a pep talk to the Ottawa players in their dressing room. Surprise. They lost.

“Players are married to rivals on other teams. Can you get more hip than that?  Women’s hockey is nominally about winning; the real prize is equal pay for work of equal value. And the love of the Trudeau cabinet.

“But men’s hockey, with its crude meritocracy, must be shunned at all costs. Pediatric “experts” blame its emphasis on winning for causing kids to drop out.. So when the sordid tale of a 2018 multiple-sex allegation at a golf tournament arrived it warranted a hearing in the Commons, tut-tutting editorials by the score about the over-sexed nature of teenaged young hockey stars and multiple attempts to convict someone, anyone, for the act.

“That’s why the principals eventually pursued a civil case, where rules of evidence are less stringent. A civil case that Hockey Canada quickly paid off from a suspicious slush fund to end the ordeal for everyone. How’d that work out?

”Feminists and the non-binary set howled about this, but after the storm of outrage the media cycle disappeared from the public view. The 20 or so players on the 2018 Team Canada gold medal winners graduated into the NHL, and the league, which had no power to compel testimony nor a criminal charges to rely on, let them play.

“But pressure on police over the following months finally forced criminal charges. Butter cloak of secrecy prevailed. This was highly unsatisfactory. Who was under suspicion? Who was innocent? Player agents and lawyers kept their charges from self-incrimination at all costs.

“How will it end? Will there be convictions or will deals be done? In this time where social-media truths are fungible and Woke causes are paramount no one should hazard a guess. But one thing that will get an airing is the charge that hockey created this climate of sexual permissiveness. The sport must be condemned when its participants break the law.

You think that hockey caused this? That it doesn’t happen in the world of millionaire basketball or football or baseball players? Guess again. Cleveland Browns QB DeShaun Watson faced 24 sexual assault accusations. One former NBA player had seven children by six different women. Former MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer faced sexual assault charges from an alleged assault at his home.

How about the stories of young women who, like the young women pursuing athletes, went backstage at concerts and shows for a rendezvous with a famous rock star like Steven Tyler or Axl Rose and got more than they bargained for.

Or those who tried to climb the political or corporate ladder by submitting to power figures? Hello, Kamala Harris. This case is about power, stardom, privilege and exploitation. Ugly, yes. Life-wrecking for some. But trying to pigeon-hole hockey as the unique engineer of the tragedy is ignorant and irresponsible. “

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. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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