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An Ontario Christian college that the Doug Ford government is attempting to grant university status — which would give it the ability to hand out science degrees — has questioned climate change.
“Is global warming Earth worship?” reads a poster from 2015 advertising a course at the Canada Christian College.
Controversy has swirled around the premier’s relationship with the school in recent weeks, after Ford’s government passed a measure to give it university status, buried in an omnibus bill. Canada Christian College’s president is Charles McVety, an evangelical preacher who has made homophobic and Islamophobic statements, and who supported Ford’s campaign to become premier.
The course advertisement, surfaced by the opposition Ontario NDP Wednesday, was posted to the college’s Twitter account in April 2015. The six-week course, titled “The End Bible Prophecy,” or “Eschatology 101” — referring to a branch of Christian theology that studies the end of the world — was taught by McVety.
The description on the poster includes a series of baffling questions. “Islamic War is imminent?” it reads. “What do the Four Blood Moons tell us?”
It also says “one world governance is here” and asks: “Will peace on Earth be the result?”
In another video released by the NDP Wednesday, McVety said he believes the Earth is only 6,000 years old, a statement that runs opposite to the scientific consensus. (In fact, Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old.)
Referring to climate action in 2009, McVety has also said carbon pricing “will fund the one world government of the Anti-Christ.”
Neither McVety nor the college responded to a request for comment, or to questions about the content of the 2015 course.
“No one is suggesting that Charles McVety can’t hold his own personal views, but no one believes he should be able to teach hate and anti-science beliefs and then grant degrees,” said Ontario NDP post-secondary education critic Chris Glover in question period at Queen’s Park Wednesday.
“Why won’t the government do the right thing and pull the legislation that gives Charles McVety university degree-granting authority in arts and sciences?”
In response, Minister of Colleges and Universities Ross Romano said the government used a similar bill to expand the degree-granting powers of Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and OCAD University in Toronto last year.
“It’s a fair process,” he said.
The school has also put in an application to the independent Post-Secondary Education Quality Assessment Board, which usually makes the decision to bump up a college to university status. Although the Ford government passed the bill, it said amid backlash that it would not proclaim that part of the legislation into law unless the board approves.
Glover said in a statement Wednesday that McVety “actively undermines science.”
“Doug Ford’s efforts to give his friend and political backer the authority to hand out university degrees in science undermines the world-class reputation of Ontario’s universities and colleges.”
Scrutiny of Ford’s relationship with McVety intensified this week after the NDP accused Ford and surfaced since-deleted photos of Ford’s family at McVety’s birthday party in 2019.
Comments
Granting university status to any college like Canada Christian College would be an outrage against science and rational thought. It would also be an astounding insult to legitimate Canadian universities.