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KINSELLA: Conservative MP petitioning for Don Cherry to get Order of Canada a dumb move

Former governor-general Romeo LeBlanc once told me one should never start a campaign for the Order of Canada

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In politics, there’s kicking a hornet’s nest, and there’s tripping over one.

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Typing up a column about Don Cherry’s suitability for the Order of Canada without being asked to? That’s kicking a hornet’s nest.

KINSELLA: Conservative MP petitioning for Don Cherry to get Order of Canada a dumb move Back to video

Everyone has an opinion about the former hockey broadcaster. Mine is this: he made hockey games entertaining. He did. Cherry was like Donald Trump, in that you never knew what he was going to say next. But, unlike Trump, Cherry didn’t seem to revel in being cruel. He didn’t make a career of punching down.

He did like punching, however. Don Cherry knew that hockey was fast and physical, and fights were inevitable. And, let’s face it, hockey fights are sometimes entertaining.

Grapes was entertaining most of the time

So, most of the time, Cherry was entertaining. He was funny, with the garbled syntax and the byzantine sartorial choices. But, sometimes, Cherry would pop off about things that had nothing to do with hockey. And then he’d get in trouble.

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You can debate whether he should’ve been kicked off the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, and – seven years later – people still do. Here’s what got him in trouble. Here’s what he said.

“You people” Cherry said, indisputably referring to immigrants, “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.”

Before that, Cherry used to make fun of Europeans and “French guys.” He’d say female reporters shouldn’t be allowed in NHL dressing rooms. Stuff like that. All unforced errors. But what ended his career was the “you people” thing.

In the intervening years, his fans haven’t abandoned him.

Premier Doug Ford gave him the Order of Ontario. My colleague Joe Warmington celebrated Cherry’s every utterance, just about.

Life went on. Don Cherry continued to be Don Cherry – loving Canada, loving hockey.

And then, Conservative MP Andrew Lawton – who previously distinguished himself by saying that gays were “the real enemy” because of HIV/AIDS, and that abortion “robs” men of being Dads –decided to start a petition to bestow the Order of Canada on Don Cherry.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre immediately endorsed Lawton’s petition, saying, “Don Cherry embodies what it means to be a proud Canadian.”

Don Cherry embodies what it means to be a proud Canadian. Great work getting this going Andrew, and count me in. https://t.co/XrFpa4Ln9v— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) March 6, 2026

Don Cherry embodies what it means to be a proud Canadian. Great work getting this going Andrew, and count me in. https://t.co/XrFpa4Ln9v

Well, no, said Poilievre’s very own Quebec lieutenant, MP Pierre Paul-Hus. It was “a bad idea,” Hus said, because of Cherry’s “unacceptable remarks toward the Quebec nation and francophones.”

Thereafter, every talk show host and columnist in Canada got in on the resulting donnybrook.

“We’ve got MAGAtha Christie on the line, and she says Mark Carney is a chemtrail lizard person who works for the Deep State, and she thinks Don Cherry deserves to be president and get the Order of Canada, too!”

Well, you read it here first, folks: Don Cherry ain’t gonna get the Order of Canada, now. Sorry. And it’s not because he was sometimes controversial.

It’s because Messrs. Lawton, Poilievre et al. made a dumb, dumb move.

WARMINGTON: A special happy birthday to Coach Don Cherry from a country back in his corner

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Full disclosure: my father got the Order of Canada. This week, my pal George Stroumboulopoulos got it. Cartoonist Michael de Adder got it, too. I think they’re all good picks (Dad in particular).

Don Cherry might be a good pick, too – seven years on, if you’re being objective, his sentence does seem to be way out of proportion to his crime, doesn’t it?

But Cherry still won’t get that little enamel lapel pin – because Lawton stupidly started a loud public campaign to get it for him.

Never campaign for the Order of Canada

Here’s why: years ago, I was close to former governor-general Romeo LeBlanc. I ran the 1993 federal Liberal war room, and Romeo was the guy I reported to. After he became GG, Romeo told me the one thing that one should never, ever do is start a campaign for the Order of Canada.

“It’s not like running for president of your student council,” Romeo said to me. “Don’t start a petition, don’t put up signs. You’re supposed to keep quiet, keep it private, and be humble when you get it. It’s more Canadian.”

Which is why, as I sprint past the now-buzzing hornet’s nest, I actually feel sorry for Don Cherry. He paid a steep price. He did his time. And Cherry may have actually deserved the Order of Canada.

But, in trying to win it for him?

The Conservatives wrecked it for him.

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