Professors protest evangelical college proposal
Granting bachelor degrees to institution undermines public education, they say
Faculty associations are giving a failing grade to a push by a controversial Doug Ford pal to transform an evangelical college into a full-fledged university.
Professors from Ontario universities are flooding the mailbox of Colleges and Universities Minister Ross Romano to protest Charles McVety’s bid to have Canada Christian College grant bachelor degrees. McVety, a friend and supporter of the premier, has been accused of bigotry against lesbians, gays, transgender people and Muslims.
“We all know the hate that Charles McVety spews,” NDP MPP Laura Mae Lindo (Kitchener Centre) said Wednesday. “Why did the premier make the time to help Charles McVety grow his platform for hate rather than helping the people of this province survive the pandemic?”
Lindo, who last week revealed that Ford’s Progressive Conservatives had buried enabling legislation helping McVety’s college in a COVID-19 omnibus bill, noted that faculty representatives are worried. “At least 10 universities and the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) have written to us. They said this premier is undermining public education and the Ontario Human Rights Code.”
Ford has denied having anything to do with McVety’s application, insisting “it’s an independent process” overseen by the Post-secondary Education Quality Assessment Board.
OCUFA president Rahul Sapra, a Ryerson University associate professor, said in a letter to Romano that educators “are alarmed that your government is intending to discreetly pass legislation that would allow the Canada Christian College to call itself a ‘university’ and award degrees.”
“The Ontario government should not grant accreditation and degree-granting privileges to institutions that do not meet the anti-discriminatory and anti-hate speech principles outlined in the Ontario Human Rights Code,” wrote Sapra, whose association represents 17,000 faculty and academic librarians.
“Charles McVety, who runs the college, openly holds deeply rooted Islamophobic, transphobi c and homophobic views. Allowing the Canada Christian College to call itself a ‘university’ and to award degrees in our province would most certainly harm these marginalized communities and allow hateful and discriminatory speech to persist.”
In a separate missive, Andrea King, president of London’s Huron University College Faculty Association, said professors “are concerned about emerging efforts to privatize post-secondary education in Ontario and to give private institutions degree-granting privileges that will undermine the quality and accessibility of post-secondary education in Ontario.”
Daniel Brown, president of the Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo, said he was “shocked to learn that your government intends to allow the Canada Christian College to award ‘university’ degrees in arts and in sciences.”
In an email last week, McVety told the Star “the college, its president, staff and faculty value all individuals, including the LGBTQ community” and lamented the “mindless, hateful name calling” directed toward his college.
The school’s application does not specifically mention any antipathy toward LGBTQ communities, but it does note students and faculty must “refrain from practices that are biblically condemned.” According to its submission, that includes “abortion,” “drunkenness” and “sexual sins including premarital sex, adultery, all types of fornication and related behaviour, and viewing of pornography.”
In Romano’s absence from the legislature, it was left to Tory MPP Gila Martow (Thornhill) to defend the government.
“We respect all communities, all religious communities, all types of communities, whether they be LGBT or anybody else … but we also respect the process,” said Martow. “We are waiting for the ruling by this independent review, then the ministry will be able to review the review,” she said. “This is the exact same process that OCA D and Algom a went through just last year.”
Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca, meanwhile, charged the McVety affairs smacks of “cronyism and political payback.” “It’s clear that there has been co-ordination between Doug Ford and Charles McVety. The time for secrecy is over. Doug Ford must come clean.”