Crossing a line too many times

So Don Cherry got fired. About time! The man has been his own fireworks factory for 38 years. Then he lit one incendiary match too many. He failed to realize that once you become public property, you lose the privileges of individuality. You can no longer claim the liberty to speak only for yourself.

Like everyone else, Don Cherry is entitled to express his own opinions — within his own circle. But Coach’s Corner on Hockey Night in Canada is probably the most public pulpit in the country.

Cherry has been a fixture on Hockey Night in Canada for 38 years. Initially, having been fired as coach of the Colorado Rockies, he limited his commentary to hockey tactics.

But he soon used Coach’s Corner as a soapbox to sound off about social issues.

Some of his controversial views were related to hockey. Face visors, for example. But he strayed into personal prejudice when he claimed that protective gear was worn by wimps, and by “Europeans and French guys.”

A similar bias surfaced when he derided Olympic medalist and Canadian flag-bearer Jean-Luc Brassard as “a French guy, some skier nobody knows about.”

Other rants had nothing at all to do with his hockey expertise. He crashed Rob Ford’s inauguration as Mayor of Toronto, grabbing the cameras to denounce bicycle riders as “pinkos.”

On another occasion, he argued with co-host Ron MacLean about Canada not joining George W. Bush’s war on Iraq.

And last weekend, he attacked immigrants. Although he didn’t specifically name immigrants, the words “You people…that come here,” made his target fairly clear. Later alibis fell flat.

“You love our way of life,” Cherry went on, “you love our milk and honey, at least you can pay a couple bucks for a poppy…"

The president of Sportsnet — which owns and produces Hockey Night — fired Cherry two days later. Sportsnet president Bart Yabsley called Cherry’s comments “discriminatory… he made divisive remarks that do not represent our values or what we stand for.”

Predictably, a chorus of voices rose in Cherry’s defence. One theme insisted that he had a constitutional right to freedom of speech.

True. The Canadian Constitution does guarantee freedom of speech. For that we can thank John Diefenbaker, whose Bill of Rights and Freedoms Pierre Trudeau absorbed into the Constitution Act of 1982.

Unfortunately, the Charter does not include the common maxim: “Your right to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose.”

The laws prohibiting speech that may foment ill feeling against any race or group come under hate speech, in the Criminal Code.

The Criminal Code enshrines a principle that the Constitution doesn’t — the misuse of “trust, power or authority.”

Having sex, for example, is a crime even if both parties consent, if one of those parties is in “a position of trust, power or authority” over the other.

Typical professions might be teacher, coach, babysitter, family member, or doctor. Also an employer, with an employee. Or a military officer with a lower rank.

My own church, the United Church of Canada has policies that will not permit an unmarried minister to fall in love with a member of the congregation. It’s taken for granted that a priest or minister is in a position of trust and/or authority over a lay person. To continue their relationship, one of them must leave the congregation -- thus, theoretically, leveling the playing field.

Betraying a position of trust and authority lay behind the scandal of priestly abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.

As a TV star — possibly one of the most popular personalities in the country — Don Cherry had a privileged position. He abused that position to bully nameless people who could not defend themselves.

He doesn’t deserve special treatment just because, as Joe Warmington of the Toronto Sun argued, “he has made a lot of money for a lot of people.”

Prominent persons — any prominent persons — have standards they are expected to live up to.

Queen Elizabeth cannot tell Donald Trump to “eff off.” even if she wanted to. The Pope cannot come out onto his balcony dressed in a Speedo, even if he wanted to.

Don Cherry transgressed the bounds of his position of public trust.

We expect our public figures to think before they shoot off their mouths. We expect them to measure the impact of their words before they speak, to consider the repercussions of their actions before they act.

Don Cherry didn’t. One time too many.

Jim Taylor is an Okanagan Centre author and freelance journalist. He can be reached at rewrite@shaw.ca