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rfmcdonaldDon Cherry, host of the CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, was invited by Mayor-Elect Rob Ford to speak at his City Council inauguration, to drape the chain of office around Ford's neck and to give a speech. And what a speech it was.
The video is here.
His speech drew plenty of reaction indeed. The term is now appearing on T-shirts and buttons. Steve Munro thinks that Ford should apologize for inviting Cherry. Globe and Mail columnist John Doyle exorciates Cherry for his new involvement in politics, bringing such an important CBC show into the political arena (on the right).
The National Post's Kelly McParland gets it right, I think, when he says that Torontonians can be divided into people who like Cherry (like Ford) and people who don't (like the "pinkos"). He's pro-Cherry himself.
So, the Toronto culture wars begin; or, rather, they continue, with people on the left (like me) now on the side opposite the mayor. How fun.
Actually I'm wearing pink for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything. I thought I'd get it in. What'd ya expect, Ron MacLean, here? To come here?
You know, I am befuddled, because I thought I was just doing a good thing, coming down with Ron—Rob—and I was gonna do this here, and it was gonna be nice and the whole deal.
I've been bein' ripped to shreds by the left-wing pinko newspapers out there. It's unbelievable. One guy called me a pink...a jerk in a pink suit, so I thought I'd wear that for him too, today.
You know, it's funny. In those articles I was made fun of 'cause I go to church. I'm easy to do it that way. And I was called maudlin for the troops, because I honor the troops. This is the kinda, uh... You're gonna be facin', Rob, with these left-wing pinkos. They scrape the bottom of the barrel, but AGAIN, I was asked, why I was asked, and I asked Doug, "why?" And he said: "We need a famous, good-looking guy." And I said, I'm your man, right? Right off the bat.
You know, I was asked: why, why, why [the] landslide. And I was in their corner right from the start. They phoned me. Doug phoned me, the morning. They'll get a landslide! And why? Because Rob's honest. He's truthful. He's like Julian Fantino. What you see is what you get. He's no phony. And I could go on right now, all the millions and millions and thousands of dollars he's gonna save and everything, but I'd just like to tell a little story that was in the Sun, I think it was in the back pages. It was just a little, little thing. And Fiona Crean, for eighteen months, has been trying to get something done with City Hall. And then the story—I think some of you know the story—that there was a little old lady and all of a sudden she got banged on the door and two guys were there and said: "We're cutting your tree down." You know that's just a little thing, but to me that's a big thing. "We're cutting your tree down!"
And she's, well: "I don't want it. That's my favourite tree. A hundred year-old..."
"No! It's down. Cut it down." And then they give her, send her a bill for five-thousand dollars, for cutting it down. And for eighteen months her son and Fiona were: "City Hall. City Hall. Please help us." Thirty, forty calls. Unbelievable. Nothing. Laughed at. Rob's the mayor one day, apology comes, and a five-thousand-dollar cheque.
And that's why I say he's gonna be the greatest mayor this city has ever, ever seen, as far as I'm concerned! And put that in your pipe, you left-wing kooks.
The video is here.
His speech drew plenty of reaction indeed. The term is now appearing on T-shirts and buttons. Steve Munro thinks that Ford should apologize for inviting Cherry. Globe and Mail columnist John Doyle exorciates Cherry for his new involvement in politics, bringing such an important CBC show into the political arena (on the right).
Why is Ford Don Cherry’s kind of guy? According to the Toronto Star: “Voters are ‘sick of the elites and artsy people’ running politics, says Don Cherry.” Cherry is also reported to be pleased by things “shifting around a bit to the right” and is further quoted as saying, “It’s time for some lunch-pail, blue-collar people.” That wouldn’t be Ford, exactly, as he’s a well-off career politician. Even just reading Cherry in the paper one can hear the tone of sanctimonious self-importance so familiar from Hockey Night in Canada.
This is Cherry’s second foray into politics. Recently he endorsed Julian Fantino, the Conservative candidate in last week’s by-election in Vaughan, and recorded a telephone message endorsing the former Ontario Provincial Police commissioner. These acts have unleashed some peculiar commentary, much of it of the gee-shucks variety written with a lavish number of puns about hockey. Like it was all meaningless. But it isn’t.
Here’s the thing: The politicization of Hockey Night in Canada is now complete.
Cherry’s always been bombastic about vaguely political issues, but disguised his reactionary rants as folksy, on subjects such as French guys and Canada’s failure to join in the invasion of Iraq. Then, more significantly, came those ceaseless, maudlin memorials to young women and men who have died fighting in Afghanistan. As if their deaths deserved nothing more noble than a TV freak in a pink suit spouting cracker-barrel philosophy about the worth of the mission in Iraq.
Like many rich and famous TV personalities, Cherry now comes across as a narcissist. His embrace of Conservative orthodoxy is his business, apparently, even as he’s shoving it down the country’s throat on a publicly funded broadcaster.
The National Post's Kelly McParland gets it right, I think, when he says that Torontonians can be divided into people who like Cherry (like Ford) and people who don't (like the "pinkos"). He's pro-Cherry himself.
The difference between anti-Cherry people and pro-Cherry people (like me), seems to be in how seriously you take him. Yes he makes lots of controversial comments (though, if you read the transcript of his remarks yesterday, you realize there’s always the issue of deciphering just what he’s actually saying.) And some of it is a bit rude (for instance, his determination to mispronounce names, even when he likes people. It took me a while on Saturday to figure out that the ”Jack Martin” he kept referring to was Montreal coach Jacques Martin.
What they miss is that Cherry is authentic. He’s a showman, but he’s not a phony. He doesn’t temper his views to suit his audience in the way a politician would. So, unlike a politician, you know what he really thinks. He’s not malicious. He’s a patriot, as sincere as they come. When he chokes up every time he announces another casualty, it’s because the man cares so much. And what, exactly, is wrong with a Canadian hockey coach caring so deeply about the men and women who give their lives for their country, and using a few moments on the national channel to ensure other Canadians recognize the sacrifice being made on their behalf? The pink suit, is that it? Can soldiers only be mourned by people who wear whatever is current fashion in the Globe and Mail newsroom?
So, the Toronto culture wars begin; or, rather, they continue, with people on the left (like me) now on the side opposite the mayor. How fun.
