Juno News - Don Cherry’s firing is a free speech issue

00:00:00.000 Never mind what Don Cherry's critics are saying. There's no denying it. His firing by Sportsnet

00:00:10.260 is in fact a free speech issue. Sportsnet, the sports network owned by Rogers, announced on

00:00:17.340 Remembrance Day that Don Cherry would immediately step down. This is what the network said in a

00:00:23.500 statement. Sports brings people together. It unites us, not divides us. Following further

00:00:29.260 discussions with Don Cherry after Saturday night's broadcast, it has been decided it is the right

00:00:34.780 time for him to immediately step down. During the broadcast, he made divisive remarks that do not

00:00:40.980 represent our values or what we stand for. Don is synonymous with hockey and has played an integral

00:00:46.860 role in growing the game over the past 40 years. We would like to thank Don for his contributions to

00:00:52.880 hockey and sports broadcasting in Canada. Well, sure, it's nice that they give him a little thank

00:00:58.580 you for his service as they shut and lock the door behind him. Let's not mince words about it. Don

00:01:04.720 Cherry was in his own words in an interview with Joe Warmington of the Toronto Sun forced out because

00:01:10.080 he wouldn't relent and wouldn't give in on comments he made about poppies and encouraging all people in

00:01:17.260 Canada to wear them to honour veterans. But I want to talk about this from a free speech perspective

00:01:23.000 because the point that I put out on Twitter is that this is in fact another casualty of the war

00:01:28.720 on free speech, the war that is being waged by the left and really occurring because of political

00:01:35.420 correctness. And people responded to say, oh, well, it's not about free speech because he still has the

00:01:40.620 right to say what he wants to say. Yeah, let's explain this because free speech is not just about

00:01:46.400 freedom from government censorship. I want to show you a clip from Drex, who's an overnight host on

00:01:52.220 Chorus Radio. And he took aim at what I said on Twitter and also ended up making this comment on

00:01:57.740 his radio show. This has nothing to do with free speech. No one has taken away Don Cherry's free

00:02:03.620 speech. While you're working for a company, if the company doesn't like what you've said, if it doesn't

00:02:08.080 jive with what they want, they're fully within their rights to get rid of you. So let me be the

00:02:12.740 first to say that I agree with Drex wholeheartedly that a company has the right to decide if someone is

00:02:19.000 not on brand, that a company has the right to decide if it doesn't want someone on its airwaves.

00:02:25.160 Nobody has the right to a specific platform. This is undeniable. And all of these people saying,

00:02:31.380 well, it's not free speech because Rogers has the right to fire him are missing the point.

00:02:35.840 Free speech exists in two separate ways. There is the right to not be thrown in a gulag for

00:02:40.940 offending the Politburo, for speaking out against the government. The constitutional right to free speech,

00:02:46.200 which is sacred and paramount. There's also the cultural free speech value, which is the idea that

00:02:53.560 you should be able to speak your mind without people saying no, without people saying that you don't

00:02:58.860 have the right to your opinion, without people saying you should be fired, you should be destroyed,

00:03:03.480 you should be cancelled, as it's so often known in the current cancel culture era in which we live.

00:03:09.140 Don Cherry's situation doesn't fall in the first column. Of course, he has the right to start a

00:03:13.080 podcast to go and speak on a sidewalk somewhere. He has the right to say his words and has not been

00:03:18.900 censored by the government. Rogers, while it has the right to fire him, is still capitulating to a

00:03:25.180 cultural value that is really dominated by resistance to free speech, and that is cancel culture.

00:03:32.080 Rogers has done what is expedient. They don't want to deal with the social media mob. No one does.

00:03:37.120 So they get rid of Don Cherry, despite the glowing words they made in their own statement being true.

00:03:41.940 How much he has given to hockey and given to the Hockey Night in Canada brand over the last four

00:03:47.960 decades. The reality is that the people who are cheering that Don Cherry has been fired

00:03:53.740 fundamentally reject the idea of free speech. They fundamentally reject the idea that we can

00:04:00.340 discuss our differences. They fundamentally reject the idea that someone making an opinion about

00:04:06.920 poppies is unworthy of firing. This is the battle that we're seeing waged right now, and anyone who

00:04:14.880 says that Don Cherry's termination is not about free speech hasn't been paying attention. You don't

00:04:21.040 need the power of the state to censor if society has basically made cancel culture the gospel and dogma

00:04:28.100 that funds all industry. No one can exist in media unless they view the world in the narrow way that

00:04:33.840 the cancelers view the world. No one can go into politics if they don't hew to exactly what the

00:04:39.460 progressive orthodoxy is on any issue. That's the culture. In fact, this is far advanced beyond

00:04:45.580 state-mandated censorship, because state-mandated censorship, at least there's a constitutional

00:04:50.640 amendment to fight against. Now, the remedy of this is not statutorily mandating Don Cherry on the

00:04:57.200 air. Although, quite frankly, we've got tens of thousands of signatures on the True North petition

00:05:01.420 indicating people very much are standing with him in Canada. No, what we need to do to fight back

00:05:07.340 against this is to push back against the culture. It's never been more important to say,

00:05:12.640 I stand with Don Cherry. It's never been more important to stand up for people who lose their

00:05:17.900 jobs and their livelihoods and face cancellation because they dared to say something that the elites

00:05:24.720 in the mainstream media didn't want to hear. This isn't about whether Don Cherry made a mistake or

00:05:30.600 not. It's not about whether you agree with what Don Cherry said or not. It's not about whether you

00:05:35.380 like Don Cherry or not. If you cheer for anyone's termination, done only because the company that

00:05:43.280 hired them needed to capitulate to the mob, you are fueling a culture that, mark my words, will

00:05:49.300 eventually come back for you. If cancel culture reigns supreme, no one, and I mean no one, escapes

00:05:56.440 unscathed. True North is standing up for Don Cherry. True North is also standing up for free speech.

00:06:04.020 We know the mainstream media isn't going to. If you can help us out in this battle, please do head on

00:06:08.940 over to tnc.news and make a contribution or join My Heritage Club. For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.

Juno News - November 12, 2019

Don Cherry’s firing is a free speech issue

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