The strange saga of preacher Charles McVety
For “Dr.” Charles McVety, the good Lord and Doug Ford can always be counted on.
But who, if anyone, will hold McVety to account?
The strange saga of the preacher and the premier has raised uncomfortable questions about McVety’s Canada Christian College — not only his notorious homophobia, but also the mysterious financial arrangements he and his son Ryan appear to have benefited from.
McVety refused to answer key questions posed by the Toronto Star (in consultation with a forensic accountant) about six-figure loans to him and his son from the registered charity they run as president and vice-president.
Those unanswered questions about unsecured borrowings raise the bigger question of whether our governmental authorities will demand a full accounting. The alternative is for the premier to keep taking leaps of faith — giving his blessings to this fledgling college as it campaigns to be born again as a fullfledged university.
Despite its dubious diplomas, Ford’s
Tories want to accredit the discredited campus so that it can issue coveted BA and BSc degrees — pushing through highly controversial legislation even before the application has been fully evaluated. Notwithstanding McVety’s homophobic and Islamophobic pronouncements, the premier keeps proclaiming himself a faithful friend.
Facing public pressure, the Progressive Conservative government belatedly announced it would await an independent panel before taking the final step to confer upgraded university status. But why did Ford leapfrog the legal process in the first place, relying on peculiar procedures that lacked transparency from start to finish?
McVety’s crusade to rechristen his college as a university — years after its degree-granting powers were first reined in by provincial authorities — has thrown a spotlight on operations long concealed from public view. Thanks to an accidental online disclosure, we now know far more about the finances of Canada Christian College (CCC) than McVety ever wanted revealed or divined.
Detailed financial information submitted to the Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board (PEQAB) was briefly posted on its website — then hurriedly taken down amid sharp protests from McVety’s lawyer over the awkward revelations. New Democratic Party researchers captured some of the information, prompting MPPs to ask pointed questions in the legislature about how charitable funds are being used or misused to buy “toys” such as jet skis and vehicles enjoyed by the McVetys.
When I sent detailed questions to McVety asking about the full extent of his borrowings, his lawyer Julian Porter requested two days to formulate a formal reply on his behalf. When Porter’s 102-word email finally landed, it left more questions than answers — and the implication that McVety believes himself answerable only to government authorities, not the general public:
“The college, in its application, gave financial information under the promised terms that it would remain confidential. Any such information was improperly posted.”
But these were responses to questions I had not asked.
Regarding the detailed list of questions that I submitted on the college’s finances and McVety’s borrowings, Porter declined to provide any information, saying only:
“The college will provide answers concerning its financial statements to an appropriate authority when requested.” But not before. Who will protect the interests of CCC students to ensure they are getting a quality education for the tuition they pay, and the provincial loans they take on — loans subsidized by all taxpayers? Who will safeguard the financial interests of those who donate to the registered charity run by McVety, contributions that are eligible for tax deductions — deductions subsidized, in turn, by all taxpayers?
In total, Charles McVety and his son Ryan owed the college — a registered charity — $860,000 at the end of 2019, according to financial information in the unexpurgated CCC application that was briefly posted online.
(Charles McVety owed $597,542 in 2018 with $555,536 outstanding last year. Ryan McVety borrowed $280,000 to relocate to Whitby; he still owed $172,360 on that loan in December 2019, with a separate $132,845 loan also on the books.)
The lack of detailed information raises important questions for a charitable organization, according to forensic accountant Charles Smedmor, who examined the figures released by PEQAB (and also the college’s annual filings to the Canada Revenue Agency).
McVety’s college “is a registered charity with a special duty to properly care for funds received,” Smedmor told me. “The notes to the 2019 college financials (posted by PEQAB) show that the loans to the McVetys are unsecured. Although bearing interest, the rate is not disclosed.”
The bottom line, according to the forensic accountant: “There may be limited protection for the college’s money as its hard cash has been converted into unsecured advances.”
The charity’s most recent filing for 2019 was posted by the Canada Revenue Agency last Friday only after repeated requests from the Toronto Star (Porter refused to share it with me): New information shows $1.07 million in “amounts receivable from non-arm’s length persons” (such as money still owed by the McVetys or others for their loans) has increased steadily in recent years — up 17.5 per cent from $912,803 the year before, and more than double the $513,898 at the end of 2015.
Hence my questions to Canada Christian College: What are the precise terms and interest rates for all loans (to ensure the charity is fully and fairly repaid by directors like the McVetys who — as father and son, president and vice-president — are not at “arm’s length”)?
Is there any collateral for the loans? Have the McVetys provided personal guarantees? Did they agree to take out life insurance policies that clearly specify the charity as a beneficiary to ensure the loans are fully repaid in case of death?
The blanket reply to all those questions was that the college would only answer to “an appropriate authority when requested.”
(In a previous media statement following the NDP’s disclosures, McVety described the peculiarly complex lending arrangement: “As president, Charles McVety’s salary is set at $200,000 per year. However, he was only paid a salary of approximately $50,000 per year. All other benefits, including housing and car allowances, were set up as loans with interest. Dr. Charles McVety began repaying them two years ago in an audited agreement with the college. Ryan McVety’s salary is set at $150,000 per year and he was only paid a salary of approximately $60,000. All other benefits, including housing and car allowances for him were set up as loans with interest as well. All loans in this regard have been reviewed and audited by independent chartered professional accountants each year.”)
Who are the independent chartered professional accountants that McVety says “reviewed and audited” the loans — and did they raise any comments or concerns (to protect the charity’s financial position)? Again, Porter wouldn’t respond when I asked.
Instead, he offered this irrelevant (and inaccurate) statement: “You are aware that Canada Christian College does not receive any government money.”
In fact, the college received $225,987 in government money through this year’s Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, according to its own financial submission.
The outstanding questions about Canada Christian College are not just financial and pedagogical but moral. Is it an upstanding educational institution in good financial standing guided by unimpeachable leadership?
As president, McVety has described same-sex marriage as “a dagger in the heart of man,” decried sex education as a “militant homosexual agenda,” and preached that “homosexuals prey on children.” He has publicly warned that “Islam is not just a religion, it’s a … mandate for a hostile takeover.”
Beyond the bigotry, he brims with bile, issuing a media statement last week demonizing his NDP critics while defying credulity: “As it has been stated by many people at many times, the NDP hates Christians.”
In fact, Christian believers have long been influential NDP voices spreading the gospel and preaching to the converted — clerics such as former MPs J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles, Bill Blaikie, Dan Heap and more recently ex-MPP Cheri DiNovo. Whatever some might think of NDP ideology, idolatry is not party policy.
While damning the NDP, McVety keeps singing the praises of the Progressive Conservative premier, which may be why Ford feels so conflicted. In early 2018, Ford won McVety’s support during the PC leadership race by vowing to review Ontario’s updated sex-ed curriculum, and later that year he was a guest of honour at a special Christmas celebration organized by McVety.
“I am so proud to be here,” Ford told the admiring crowd from Canada Christian College.
Not everyone is so enamoured of McVety’s handiwork.
As reported in a previous column, the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) has repeatedly turned down applicants who rely on degrees from McVety’s school, finding “reasonable grounds for doubting the quality of education provided to students at Canada Christian College.” In another ruling, a regulatory panel was also “concerned about the discrepancies that appeared in both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees transcripts from Canada Christian College.”
As for “Dr.” Charles McVety, his doctoral honorific — widely questioned — has been removed from some (but not all) of his website, which lists him as president and “Professor of Systematic Theology.” A previous report by the independent Good Faith Media, a Christian website, disclosed that “McVety received his doctorate from California State Christian University,” noting it is not recognized by U.S. accrediting agencies (the school’s website comes and goes from the internet).
All of which raises key questions:
Is Canada Christian College truly qualified to be upgraded to university status, issuing BA and BSc degrees (despite its president’s doubts about evolution)? More to the point, do government authorities have the wherewithal to scrutinize the college, the will to safeguard students, the determination to protect donors, and the ability to defend the public interest?
Is such an institution, led by so invidious an individual, fit to mould young Christian minds in a college setting, let alone as a university accredited by the province of Ontario? Is this who we are, and who we want our young graduates to be?
Those are not questions to be answered solely by the McVetys. Nor do these questions lie with the good Lord, for Doug Ford alone is answerable — and accountable — for decisions that rest with governmental authorities.
The outstanding questions about Canada Christian College are not just financial and pedagogical but moral