Controversial Canadian hockey commentator Don Cherry was fired last week over insensitive comments he made on the air about immigrants.
Referring to them as “you people,” Cherry used the memory of Canada’s fallen to chastise anyone not wearing a poppy.
“You people love, that come here, whatever it is, you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey, at least you can pay a couple bucks for a poppy or something like that,” he rambled on Coach’s Corner as co-host Ron McLean nodded along unquestioningly. The rant unleashed a backlash that led to his dismissal after he not only refused to apologize but even doubled down.
While he eventually expressed regret for his poor choice of words, there was no hint of a sincere apology. It would have been admirably humble and gracious of him to take that one additional step and just say, “Sorry, that came out wrong in the spur of the moment and wasn’t what I meant.”
To be clear, calling for unquestionably needed assistance for the Royal Canadian Legion is a worthwhile and commendable cause. Cherry — whose support for the legion over the years is undeniably praiseworthy — could just have simply said we should all do more to help, and anyone who has not already done so might consider buying a poppy.
But pointing a prejudiced finger at immigrants and pinning the blame — with not a shred of credible objective evidence — squarely on the shoulders of new Canadians for any waning support for legions is completely unnecessary and frankly unsubstantiated.
See, the trouble is there’s no way of knowing in a country like ours whether someone is an immigrant or born here. People like NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh — despite being born in Canada — have heard throughout their lives derisive and divisive toxic bile such as, “Go home!” to which he might reply, “You mean Scarborough?”
So even if fewer people are wearing poppies, which isn’t really corroborated by anything more than anecdotal hearsay as such statistics are not tracked, there’s no distinguishing by mere sight alone whether they are Canadian-born or new immigrants.
As for the issue of people who do not wear a poppy, I don’t presume to judge.
Maybe they bought a poppy that morning and promptly lost it two minutes later. I’ve lost track of how many times that’s happened to me. Are people staring daggers into my back, judging me negatively as some kind of Canada-hater because my poppy fell out? I sure hope not, because that’s absolutely preposterous. Reserving judgement is always a more appropriate approach rather than blurting out sweeping and egregiously erroneous generalizations that sway and shape public opinion.
How does the old saying oft ill-attributed to the likes of Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln go, “It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
And as grateful as I am and will always be to those who served and sacrificed in the Second World War — I truly doubt I would have even been born if not for the Allied victory against the Axis — I nevertheless find forced patriotism rather distasteful and even disturbing.
Besides, just because someone doesn’t wear a poppy, does not mean they don’t support veterans’ causes in other ways.
I wonder what Cherry’s thoughts are on the conscious decision of the late Second World War British veteran Harry Leslie Smith to no longer don the poppy years ago.
Not because he lacked respect for the memory of his fallen comrades. Quite the contrary. But rather because the symbolism and meaning of the poppy has largely been hijacked by politicians who parade veterans around as props to drum up patriotic fervour and justify continued interventionist misadventures whose unintended consequences only seem to exacerbate conflict.
“From now on, I will lament their passing in private because my despair is for those who live in this present world,” Smith wrote in 2013 a few years before his death, outlining a compelling and well reasoned perspective.
“I will no longer allow my obligation as a veteran to remember those who died in the great wars to be co-opted by current or former politicians to justify our folly in Iraq, our morally dubious war on terror and our elimination of one’s right to privacy.”
Perhaps Smith was onto something. The so-called war on terror has succeeded only at creating more terror. After almost 20 years, the time has come past due to reconsider this perpetual conflict that seems to have by design been made to ensure never ending profits for the military industrial complex.
However, nuanced reasoning that rejects an absolutist black-and-white, “you’re either with us or against us” world view is lost upon Cherry and his supporters, some of whom started clamouring about the death of free speech in Canada, or some such.
But make no mistake, free speech in Canada is alive and well. Much better than many, if not most, other places around the world. Cherry will not be persecuted by the government or jailed, silently whisked off to a state re-education camp — the telltale indication of truly oppressed speech. Here, the former coach can still, if he is so inclined, continue to regurgitate his rhetoric to whoever would hear it until he turns blue in the face.
Freedom of speech, however, does not mean freedom from repercussions of said speech. If a private company like Sportsnet determines his views have been become a liability or have even violated the company’s core values, it is under no obligation to continue providing the pundit a paid platform.
Let him start a podcast, blog, or just shout from the street corner. His right to do just that remains enshrined in and protected by our charter.
And well within everyone else’s freedoms is the right to call out the prejudiced nature of his comments.
Simon Ducatel is the editor of the Sundre Round Up.
