In his most bizarre political stunt as premier, Doug Ford is trying to rewrite our laws to help the controversial Canada Christian College leapfrog into coveted university status — even before receiving regulatory approval.
But that’s only half the story. The untold story gets worse — because it turns out that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing in Ontario.
Or perhaps doesn’t want to know.
Headed by the notoriously homophobic and Islamophobic Charles McVety, Canada Christian College is seeking the right to confer BA and BSc degrees — despite the fact that regulatory authorities have consistently challenged its academic credentials and rejected its graduates. Now, McVety’s delusion — with the premier’s collusion — is undermining Ontario’s university accreditation process and unsettling Ford’s fellow Tories as the public clamour grows.
A pillar of CCC’s programs is its Christian counselling department, which issues “master” and “doctor” degrees for those who study “theories of counselling and psychotherapy.” But a pillar is not a pathway.
The College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) has repeatedly turned down applicants who rely on their degrees in “Christian Counselling” from McVety’s school, challenging its academic integrity. The provincial self-regulating authority, whose powers are delegated by the government, has also questioned the accuracy and veracity of suspicious academic transcripts issued by the bible college on behalf of believers.
A damning decision by a CRPO panel in 2016 noted that applicants must “develop the competence to safely practise psychotherapy and the committee had reasonable grounds for doubting the quality of education provided to students at Canada Christian College.”
Academic transcripts are like the gospel on any campus — they should surely be sacrosanct, with no deviations from the truth. That appeared not to be the case at Canada Christian College, where transcript entries were out of sequence — degrees conferred before coursework was completed — and transfer credits from another unaccredited institution were accepted in a dubious manner:
“The committee was concerned about the discrepancies that appeared in both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees transcripts from Canada Christian College and stated that transcripts are designed to be sources of accurate and reflective information about a student’s performance and progress in an educational program. The numerous discrepancies led the committee to question the credentials presented.”
In a 2018 ruling, the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board endorsed the original decision, as it has in similar cases in 2019 and 2020. In another case, in 2018, the regulator expressed its “doubts that degrees from Canada Christian College meet the standards and rigour normally expected of degree programs in Canada” (upheld again on appeal on Sept. 2, 2020).
The registrar of the CRPO, Deborah Adams, stressed that the regulator believes qualified psychotherapists must respect diversity in religion and sexual orientation. That means demonstrating “competence around being able to provide safe, ethical, effective care to people from all over the spectrum of race and sexuality and everything else … to respect diversity,” she noted in an interview.
Canada Christian College specifies that students must “refrain from practices that are biblically condemned.”
Questions to McVety as president of CCC were referred to his legal representative, prominent libel lawyer Julian Porter, who forwarded an email from McVety’s son Ryan (who serves as vice-president and general counsel for the institution):
“Canada Christian College offers a robust and excellent Christian Counselling degree program at the undergraduate and graduate level. CCC does not directly teach registered psychotherapy as a program. Some graduates do choose to professionally go down that path and many have been accepted and registered by the CRPO, some have been rejected,” the email states.
But Adams of the CRPO told me that any graduates from McVety’s campus who gained registration as psychotherapists relied solely on their other academic credentials, not their degrees from Canada Christian College:
“We have not registered any graduates who have come forward with exclusively Canada Christian College credentials,” she noted. “I can tell you that we have had concerns, staff have concerns, about applicants from CCC.”
Yet those admonitions from the regulator have not deterred Ford from translating McVety’s ambition into legislation. The government planned on using its majority muscle to shoehorn his application, unnoticed at first, into an urgent bill dealing with more pressing pandemic matters.
That brazen attempt to avoid public scrutiny, under cover of COVID-19, speaks volumes. Facing a backlash, the Tories now say that upon passage in the legislature, they will wait for a review from outside assessors before formally proclaiming it into law — handing off this wobbly political football to the independent, non-partisan Post-secondary Education Quality Assessment Board for a final recommendation.
That suggests two different provincial authorities — the psychotherapy regulator (CRPO), and the post-secondary assessor (PEQAB) — are like two ships passing in the night, with the premier navigating the shoals in the captain’s chair. And fending off a political rebellion from a mutinous crew of Progressive Conservatives whose concerns were previously brushed aside.
Inside the supposedly arm’s length PEQAB, which was blindsided by the government’s manoeuvres, there is confusion and disillusionment. Independent experts and academics are hired to assess applications for university status and expanded degree-granting powers, but by legislating the changes to Canada Christian College in advance, PEQAB has been emasculated and embarrassed.
“It does hurt the reputation of PEQAB, and we did voice these concerns,” said one source who spoke without attribution because they were not authorized to comment publicly. “It doesn’t make us look good… We will never say ‘Yes’ to something we are not 100 per cent satisfied with — if they want to be a university, it’s going to be tough.”
All of which suggests that McVety’s application was a long-shot, and Ford is merely stringing him along — while tying everyone else in knots. So is this a perversion of the process, or merely a political diversion — a sop to an erstwhile political ally so that the premier can say he did his bidding, and then rely on outside experts to do the dirty work of rejecting a dubious application?
Even for Ford loyalists, the politics stink. The odiferous embrace of a homophobic and Islamophobic McVety by a premier who should know better deeply troubles his fellow Tories.
“Caucus was not in support of this — a number of us flagged it … well before legislation was introduced,” said one Progressive Conservative MPP. “It made no sense … we warned him it would be a PR disaster.”
The issue went back to the premier’s office for consideration. But it ended up on the floor of the legislature as a fait accompli — and a faux pas for the party faithful, who are being held hostage by true believers.
Who exactly is Charles McVety and how did he get Ford to swallow his combustible mix of political and religious divisiveness? While McVety is notorious in political circles — popping up every few years to lead crusades against sex education, stoke prejudice against gays or LGBTQ marriage, and whip up hostility to Islam — he is a fringe figure who now has Ford’s ear.
McVety has mused in public that “according to Jesus Christ, we have to love Muslims, but we don’t have to love Islam;” he warns that “Islam is not just a religion, it’s a … mandate for a hostile takeover;” he describes same-sex marriage as “a dagger in the heart of man;” he decries sex education as a “militant homosexual agenda;” and he preaches that “homosexuals prey on children.”
Pray tell, how did McVety seduce Ford into giving him what he wanted? The stroking was mutual.
In early 2018, McVety threw his support behind Ford’s come-from-behind bid for the party leadership, in exchange for a pledge to review Ontario’s updated sex-ed curriculum. Their love affair was consummated over Christmas, nearly two years ago, when Ford and his family gave their blessings to a fawning celebration organized by Canada Christian College.
“We want to thank premier Ford not only for coming tonight but also standing up for Christians,” McVety told the audience of thousands.
“I am so proud to be here,” Ford replied, joining in prayer with his wife Karla and her brother, Michael Middlebrook, a pastor, according to an exclusive account by the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington.
Like a number of articles, the Sun story refers to “Dr. Charles McVety” — as does the Canada Christian College website. Which raises the question, where did McVety get his PhD from?
While there are many full biographies for faculty on the CCC website, there is none visible for Dr. Charles McVety, who is listed only as president and “Professor of Systematic Theology.”
In an interview with veteran journalist Marci McDonald for her book on “Christian nationalism in Canada,” McVety told her his “degree came from California State Christian College,” which she noted was unaccredited. A report by Good Faith Media, which covers “the intersection of faith and culture through an inclusive Christian lens,” also noted that “McVety received his doctorate from California State Christian University. An American extension of Tae Han Theological Seminary and College in Seoul, South Korea, California State Christian University is affiliated with Victory Bible Colleges International. Neither body is listed in a Council for Higher Education Accreditation database of institutions recognized by U.S. accrediting agencies.”
An online link to biographical information on the president’s son, Dr. Ryan McVety — listed as “Professor of Christian Worldview” with a doctorate — has been taken down. Nor is there a biography for McVety’s wife, Jennifer McVety, who also claims a doctorate and is listed as registrar.
At CCC, it’s all in the family. But when I asked each of them directly for biographical information attesting to their academic achievements, none replied.
When I went back again to Porter, their legal representative who has been handling their media inquiries the last couple of days, to ask if he could answer that question on pedagogical pedigree and provenance — or any of the others I had submitted about the operations and operators of Canada Christian College — he replied with a one word email:
“No.”
