Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Sunday, April 27, 2014

Trinity Western University: Public and Private Inversions

Fact: In the wake of the Great Recession (in what might have been an Augustinian - or "Bible Bill" - moment following the sack of Rome), the “Harper Government” gave over $20 million of federal public money from its “Economic Action Plan” to evangelical teaching institutions across Canada.[1]

Fact:  $2.6 million was given to Trinity Western University (TWU) in 2009, a private Christian university in Langley, B.C.  The source of money was the so-called Knowledge Infrastructure Program.

Fact: TWU’s trove of public money was announced by the Conservative MP for Langley, Mark Warawa, himself a graduate of TWU, who did not see any conflict of interest.

Fact: Education is considered a provincial responsibility, and our public colleges and universities are underfunded.

Fact: No one at TWU complained of a crisis of conscience in light of the violation of Canada’s federal finances.

Fact: TWU now has a Law School, set to start in 2016, but the university prohibits what some people do in their bedrooms.

Fact:  What was public was given to the private, and what is private will now interfere with the public - all in the name of religious freedom.




[1] See Marci McDonald, The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (Toronto: Vintage, 2011), p. 245.   See also http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christian-schools-received-20m-from-infrastructure-fund-1.1329280

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