{"id":15717,"date":"2021-11-26T18:32:37","date_gmt":"2021-11-26T18:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=15717"},"modified":"2021-11-26T18:32:37","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T18:32:37","slug":"guelph-humber-honouree-theo-fleury-faces-backlash-for-anti-vaccine-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=15717","title":{"rendered":"Guelph-Humber honouree Theo Fleury faces backlash for anti-vaccine comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span><\/span>hen former NHL star and sexual abuse survivor and advocate Theo Fleury tweeted out his anti-vaccine views he put two universities that gave him an honorary degree in a difficult position. How could they show their support for his past work — giving voice to those affected by the trauma of sexual abuse — while condemning his aggressive anti-vaccine views.<\/p>\n

The two universities chose strikingly different paths, with Guelph-Humber taking a more reticent position.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 8, 2021, Guelph-Humber released a statement about one of their past honorary degree recipients releasing anti-vaccine posts on social media and how his comments don’t reflect Guelph-Humber\u2019s position on the Covid-19 vaccine. The honorary degree recipient who shared these posts was former NHL player and child sexual abuse survivor and advocate Theo Fleury.<\/p>\n

Fleury has released several anti-vaccine tweets such as a tweet about \u201cvaccine passport hypocrisy\u201d that stated \u201cdid you know that Canada has 43,217 registered sex offenders? And none of them have to carry a passport or QR code because it violates their privacy rights.\u201d But the tweet that had people wanting Theo Fleury stripped of this honour was a tweet that said \u201cwith vaccine passports the pedophiles will know where your kids are at all times.\u201d The tweet was deleted but created a situation where Guelph-Humber felt the need to comment.<\/p>\n

Fleury attempts to raise the point about vaccine passports taking privacy away from people who deserve to keep their privacy while pedophiles and sexual abusers can have privacy despite what they\u2019ve done when they really shouldn\u2019t. Parents should be able to know where these people are so they can feel safer.<\/p>\n

Theo Fleury was given the degree of Doctor of Laws by Guelph-Humber for his commitment to enhancing the psychological health and wellness of Canadians in 2014. Theo Fleury began the \u201cVictor Walk\u201d in 2013 which gives a voice to those affected by the trauma of childhood sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

Fleury was also a successful NHL player as he played over 1000 games with the Calgary Flames, New York Rangers, Colorado Avalanche, and the Chicago Blackhawks. Fleury won a Stanley Cup with the Calgary Flames in 1989 but his career as a hockey player wasn\u2019t easy. Fleury was sexually abused while playing in the juniors which drove him to drugs and alcohol during his NHL career.<\/p>\n

Brandon University, a university in Manitoba made headlines after they publicly condemned the comments made by Fleury. Brandon University wrote in their statement \u201cBrandon University is steadfast in our support of academic freedom, academic inquiry, and of robust public debate around issues of consequence. These freedoms, however, must be balanced against responsibilities like honesty, like integrity, and like good faith. We are disappointed that honorary degree recipient Theo Fleury is, increasingly, not meeting that balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guelph-Humber decided to approach this differently, making a statement but not using Theo Fleury\u2019s name and just referring to him as an \u201chonorary degree recipient.\u201d The statement released by Guelph-Humber wrote \u201cthe University of Guelph-Humber is aware that erroneous, misleading and damaging statements have been expressed on social media by one of its past honorary degree recipients. They do not reflect the opinions or views of the University of Guelph-Humber or the University of Guelph. The spreading of misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccination effectiveness is irresponsible and even dangerous, as it puts public health and safety at risk. While we support the right of an individual to express their own opinions, we do not support the sharing of beliefs and opinions as facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

In scenarios like this, the decision-makers always have to deal with an immense amount of difficulty when choosing whether or not to strip someone of an honorary degree after what he\u2019s been through and the good he\u2019s done over comments he\u2019s made.<\/p>\n

But a third-year business student David Disevo believes that besides the good he has done, the comments Fleury made are worthy of him losing his honorary degree. Disevo said his comments on the vaccine passport are \u201cvery inappropriate on his part\u201d and \u201cespecially (Fleury) being an individual who experienced such a horrific act, he should not be making sarcastic remarks about pedophilia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disevo says he understands and thanks Fleury for the good he’s done and how he is motivating others to make good decisions but believes that \u201che is not someone Guelph-Humber should be honouring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Guelph-Humber and Brandon University know it\u2019s important to understand that the comments made by Fleury come from him struggling to trust authority given what’s happened to him early in his life; however, they believe he has gone beyond that and shared false information which instills fear into people.<\/p>\n

With the news breaking about Kyle Beach opening up about what happened with him and his sexual abuse case against Brad Aldrich and the Chicago Blackhawks, Theo Fleury\u2019s advocacy for sexual abuse against children is more prominent than ever.<\/p>\n

Theo Fleury is honoured and revered not only for being a survivor of childhood sexual assault, but for going on to have a successful NHL career in spite of what happened to him and having to deal with the memory of what happened to him. Fleury turned to drugs and alcohol in his career to help him cope with all this. Theo Fleury should have been the last player who should have had to deal with this and the last player to not receive help from it but wasn\u2019t because of what happened to Kyle Beach.<\/p>\n

As of now, Guelph-Humber has decided to not strip Fleury of his honorary degree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former NHL star and sexual abuse advocator Theo Fleury is facing backlash for his anti-vaccine comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":15765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[592,47,115,62],"tags":[463,66,700,131],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}