Bobby Orr and the fickle Canadian pickle; Trudeau and Carney's inconvenient women problem; National Human Trafficking Awareness Day
3 Things this week and some fiction
Happy weekend! Thanks for spending part of your weekend with Things I Wrote Down.
This is a longer post, so I’m going to jump right in! Here are three things and some new fiction.
1. Bobby Orr and the fickle Canadian pickle
This is all getting out of hand.
Bobby Orr, one of the greatest hockey players in history, wrote an op-ed this week defending the greatest player of all time, Wayne Gretzky, the hockey legend of my childhood. Gretzky was booed on ice in the pre-game show before Canada went on to defeat the USA in overtime at the 4-Nations Cup. His crime? Not wearing a Canadian jersey or acknowledging the Canadian players on camera like fans wanted him to.
Under the surface of this all is anger that he showed up at the inauguration and at Mar-a-Lago. It's ultimately hatred toward Trump.
The 4-Nations Cup was a wild success, generating incredible ratings, passionate feelings, and new interest in the game. It should be celebrated. It was sad to see Canadians and Americans boo the players as our respective national anthems were sung, though. And to witness call Gretzky a traitor. We’re all better than that.
The current state of US-Canada relations is grim. And I think we all need a time out and maybe even two minutes in the penalty box to clear our heads.
How fickle can people be, when someone who has given so much time and effort to Canadian hockey is treated in such a way. Listen, we all have our personal beliefs as they pertain to things such as religion and politics. Wayne respects your right to such beliefs – why can’t you respect his?
Sports is always a cathartic release, especially for fans who throw out all their pent up emotion, their built up disappointments from failure to achieve their own glory in sport (I can say this with authority having played men’s bush league soccer), their passions, and national pride. So, perhaps it’s best not to read too much into this.
But Vancouver did burn down the city when they lost the cup (in 2011). People riot and lose control when their teams or nations fail at their game. I’m glad Canada won and that fans had a moment to celebrate and release the pent up political angst so many feel.
But we’ve got to keep our eye on the puck. We’re not enemies, we’re neighbours. And Gretzky is still the Great One.
2. Trudeau and Carney’s inconvenient women problem
Seems there’s not an influential woman the Liberal Party brass, especially Trudeau and his soon-to-be coronated replacement Mark Carney, aren’t willing to body slam out of their way in their personal mission to acquire and maintain power.
The list keeps growing. This week it was Ruby Dhalla, who, just days before the leadership debate, was set to “take it” to Carney and challenge the party orthodoxy.
While there are more scalps, here’s the Top 5 that have succumbed to the “feminist” former/current Prime Minister and his gang:
Jody Wilson-Raybould - As Attorney General and Justice Minister, she was demoted to Veterans Affairs in January 2019 during the SNC-Lavalin scandal, after refusing to intervene in a criminal case as Trudeau allegedly pressured her to do. She resigned from Cabinet shortly after and was expelled from the Liberal caucus in April 2019, alongside Philpott, with Trudeau citing a breakdown of trust—partly over her secret recording of a call with the Privy Council Clerk.
Jane Philpott - Treasury Board President until March 2019, Philpott resigned from Cabinet in solidarity with Wilson-Raybould over the SNC-Lavalin affair, criticizing Trudeau’s handling of the situation. She was later ousted from the Liberal caucus with Wilson-Raybould.
Chrystia Freeland - Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister until December 2024, Freeland resigned from Cabinet after Trudeau informed her she’d be replaced as Finance Minister amid disagreements over fiscal policy and Trump tariff threats. She stayed on as an MP and later announced her run for Liberal leadership, suggesting tension with Trudeau didn’t end her political career (yet) but it shifted it.
Celina Caesar-Chavannes - A Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary to Trudeau until 2019, she quit the caucus after alleging hostile behaviour from him when she raised concerns about diversity and her treatment. She didn’t hold a Cabinet post but was in a leadership orbit as an MP and aide, and her exit highlighted personal friction with Trudeau.
Ruby Dhalla - While not a Cabinet minister under Trudeau, Dhalla was a prominent Liberal MP (2004–2011) who re-entered the spotlight this year as a leadership candidate. She was disqualified from the Liberal leadership race this week—days before debates—over alleged rule violations, including election financing issues. Though not "removed" by Trudeau directly, the party’s decision under his leadership raised eyebrows, especially since Dhalla learned about being ousted through the CBC. The disqualification narrowed the leadership field to four candidates—Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould, and Frank Baylis. Someone should warn Freeland and Gould about what’s coming their way if they continue to hitch their wagons to the Trudeau/Carney train.
Politics is a blood sport. Perhaps the nasty, ruthless treatment these five women have experienced at the hand of Trudeau and his lackeys is the ultimate political compliment. From the outside looking in, some real soul searching and change is needed at the power centre of the party.
3. National Human Trafficking Awareness Day
February 22 was National Human Trafficking Awareness Day in Canada. But Human trafficking is not what you think. As you may know, I wrote a play and a film to highlight child sex trafficking called She Has A Name.
Through the creation of that story and its distribution, I learned so much about the issue, including how prevelant it is here in Canada and in every country around the world.
It’s often people that victims trust who become their traffickers, as this campaign video from EndTrafficking.ca highlights:
I saw this stat online this week that gave me chills. It was posted by MP Arnold Viersen who has been a strong voice in Parliament to raise awareness about trafficking in Canada.
In Canada, human trafficking is happening within 10 minutes or 10 blocks of where you live.
Let's continue to raise awareness about this national and global blight.
Have you entered the Things I Wrote Down poetry contest yet? I’m excited to share that the entries are coming in. Submit a poem and you could win a cash prize!
Learn more about the contest and enter here.
Some new fiction
As you may know, I’m writing a new fiction series week-over-week, in real time, at The 49. It’s a thrill. Subscribers get new content in their inbox every week.
The series takes place in the not-too-distant future.Recently I revealed details of one of the main characters, Boyer, who made it across the US/Mexico border as a young girl with her mother. Her experience as a kid sets up a key plot point for the story down the road.
Here’s the excerpt:
Slipping between borders seemed to be her birthright. No matter how large the wall, there was always a way to slip through. Boyer’s mother had found a way, during 46. Before Paris, before the Phos. What seemed like another lifetime ago.
She didn’t know, then, how everything was about to change, not just for her. Was too young to know or to care, barely able to see outside the caravan of human misery that brought her north.
There was a narrow window of time to slip through the crack in the wall before the borders shut.
They all knew that. And so they took the risk. Her mother trusted the wrong coyote.
But they got in.
***
Ever since the suitcase nuke in Paris, when Europe was brought to its knees, the world knew turmoil.
When the secret organization of terrorists promised to inflict similar violence on major cities around the world, one each year, turmoil became chaos. Governments reeled. Not only to recover from the environmental fallout from Paris, but from the economic destruction and social fragmentation created by the new state of fear.
The peace of the previous century was gone, as if over night, and the semblance and order, known throughout the 21st century, started to fade like sand through the calloused hands of time.
When Beijing was hit, all hell broke loose. The suitcase nuke that went off in the Forbidden City blew apart the narrative that China was a secret hand behind the European attack.
Diez was busy investigating predator priests when the nuke went off at Sacre Coeur. Lucky for him he was in North America.
Governments reacted the way governments do. Every response brought the hammer. Every problem looked like a nail. The surveillance State became even more entrenched. Invasive oversight the accepted norm. It was a tech oligarch’s dream scenario. It accelerated the integration of new technology into all aspects of life. Automation, drones and robotics, AI.
But if it was a dream era for technocrats, it was the security states’ glory day. And a journalist’s dream. Diez was there to cover it all.
The US scrambled to maintain its dominance and protect global assets, especially oil and water reserves which they feared would be the next target after the symbolic destruction of the City of Lights.
Canada, with its close proximity to the United States, was the major threat for the next nuclear strike. Rich in natural resources—especially oil, lumber and water—and, due to the tech boom of the late 21st century in the green belt near Toronto which was becoming a key centre of global data storage and digital infrastructure, the northern nation was a key political player.
Since 47, Canada had become a proverbial satellite of the US government. Now it was the crown jewel.
It was inevitable that tech giants and the military complex would become an efficient hybrid. Against this backdrop of global upheaval and local lawlessness, as every man and family and city had to fight for its own survival, the games emerged to reintroduce social control.
Diez was dropped like a single drop of blood on the sharp horn of this terrible altar. A cruel twist of fate? God’s unveiling, mysterious plan?
When the corridor walls started to be built, it was stunning how quickly that plan worked.
