McVety lashes out at NDP over college upgrade
Prominent social conservative accuses party of hating Christians
Evangelist Charles McVety is lashing out at the New Democrats for trying to scuttle his bid to get the Progressive Conservative government to upgrade Canada Christian College to a university.
McVety, a friend and supporter of Premier Doug Ford, expressed displeasure with the NDP, which has been hammering the Tories over the issue.
“As it has been stated by many people at many times, the NDP hates Christians and believes that we are second-class citizens who should be shunned from society,” he said.
“It is sad that the NDP is being so reckless with the lives of CCC students who are serving marginalized communities in homeless shelters, church outreach programs and nursing homes during the current pandemic,” added the prominent social conservative, who helped Ford win the PC leadership in 2018.
On Tuesday, NDP MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex) said the premier should be “conducting an open review of the college’s financial stability and make all of the findings public before he lets Charles McVety run a university in the province of Ontario.”
“Why is the government bending over backwards to approve what this man does with his school’s finances?” said Natyshak, referring to apparent
CCC expenditures on “jet skis in the marina and … pleasure craft.” Photos of these have been removed from personal social media accounts.
Echoing Ford’s comments Monday, Ross Romano, the colleges and universities minister, said the arm’s-length Post-secondary Education Quality Assessment Board (PEQAB) will determine whether the college is qualified to become a university.
“We, on our side of the house, do not meddle with independent advisory boards. All of our individual universities and colleges must go through a process,” Romano said.
“That is something that we are ensuring is happening in a fair, open, accountable and transparent way.
Liberal MPP John Fraser (Ottawa South) said McVet y “preaches fear and division” and should be shunned. “He said the NDP were anti-Christian. He’s the same guy who said that Islam is not a religion and who has said so many hateful things about Ontario’s LGBT community,” said Fraser, who added that the Tories’ hands appeared to be tied due to McVety’s political support for Ford.
“This is all about patronage,” he said.
The opposition parties are outraged the Conservatives have linked themselves to someone accused of intolerance toward gays, lesbians, transgender people and Muslims. As reported by the Star’s Martin Regg Cohn on Saturday, some Tory MPPs privately opposed a legislative change, buried in an omnibus bill, that would help McVety’s college become a university.
During a closed-door meeting with opposition leaders last week, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca implored four senior Tory ministers to scrap the college’s application. Del Duca said he was “surprised” Ford has permitted the controversy to swirl for the past two weeks.