Charles McVety’s Canada Christian College denied university status

Charles McVety’s Canada Christian College has been denied university status.

The application for the college, run by the socially conservative preacher who has a history of intolerant comments, was rejected after a meeting by the arm’s-length Postsecondary Education Quality Assessment Board — known as PEQAB — on Tuesday, and was communicated to the government late Wednesday.

“PEQAB has recommended that the institution not be granted expanded degree-granting authority or a name change at this time,” a spokesperson for Colleges and Universities Minister Ross Romano said Friday. “The minister has reviewed and accepts their recommendation.”

The issue of the college becoming a university proved controversial for the government after it took the unusual step of including the bid in an omnibus bill prior to PEQAB dealing with the college’s application.

Romano’s spokesperson said that portion of Bill 213 will not be proclaimed.

McVety, who is friendly with Premier Doug Ford, has landed in trouble in the past for homophobic and Islamophobic comments, and a decade ago his television show was pulled off the air after complaints.

In an interview Friday afternoon after the Star first reported the rejection, an upset McVety said the process was political and accused PEQAB of “fraudulently misrepresenting” the college to the government.

“The school met every benchmark,” he said, adding he was also “met with the most vicious political rhetoric that I have ever seen.”

McVety said he was muzzled during the process and unable to defend himself against accusations of homophobia and Islamophobia. “I will defend myself now, over time, because I love gay people and I love Muslims,” he added. “All of these vicious attacks on me are untoward. This is purely ideological — it’s pure liberal ideology.”

Canada Christian College and School of Graduate Theological Studies, which can currently grant 14 religious-based degrees, had applied to to call itself “Canada University and School of Graduate Theological Studies” and also offer bachelor of arts and science degrees.

After an in-depth review, PEQAB decided the college fell short of what’s required. The review is not public. There is nothing precluding the college from applying again.

New Democrat MPP Laura Mae Lindo, a former equity and diversity director at Wilfrid Laurier University, said the government must now repeal that portion of Bill 213.

“It’s important for the Ford government to close a really disturbing chapter in post-secondary in Ontario and make sure all legislation to allow him to try again or feel emboldened to call himself a university is gone,” so that McVety “is stopped in his tracks,” she said.

Liberal MPP Kathleen Wynne, the first openly gay premier in the province, who has blasted the government for the enabling legislation, said the PEQAB rejection got the government “out of a mess” while still giving them political cover with McVety.

“Everything about Charles McVety concerns me,” she said, adding that the government must “bring in a piece of legislation that repeals that section — that would be the clearest message.”

Romano has maintained that the institution has the right to apply for university designation and that the government would let the independent PEQAB process play out.

But questions arose soon after the bid became known, after the Star revealed that McVety and his son were given six-figure loans from the school — owing the college, a registered charity, $860,000 by the end of 2019 — and that charitable funds were apparently used to buy jet skis and vehicles. Its academic quality has also come under scrutiny in the past.

Meanwhile, a senior Tory campaign strategist said Ford’s re-election team was not impressed by McVety’s name-dropping of lobbyist Chris Froggatt or lawyer Guy Giorno in his bid.

“Neither of these people have anything to do with” the 2022 election campaign, said the insider.

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Reached via email, Froggatt said “I have not been involved with the application process for Canada Christian College to become an accredited university.”

The Tory source warned that future PC leadership hopefuls courting McVety for his eventual support in a contest to succeed Ford would not be looked upon with any enthusiasm. That’s a salvo because McVety helped Patrick Brown become leader in 2015 and was a Ford supporter in the 2018 race.

McVety told the Star that the students at Canada Christian College will suffer because of the “political corruptness,” and that 80 per cent of them are marginalized and racialized students. “PEQAB put forward to the ministry a fraudulent misrepresentation of the college. The government was informed of the misrepresentations but refused to investigate,” McVety said. “… Our students and campus community deserved better from their government.” He said a lawsuit against PEQAB is in the works, but he would not say if another application for accreditation would be brought forward in the future.