The Ontario government is defending a grant for this year’s Jesus in the City parade to an evangelical Christian group associated with a friend of Premier Doug Ford — the controversial Rev. Charles McVety, a vocal opponent of the updated sex education curriculum and same-sex marriage.An annual event since 1999, the downtown parade with floats and marching bands will be held Sept. 7 starting at Queen’s Park. It was given $12,078 under the Celebrate Ontario program, which also provides money to events such as Taste of the Danforth and Pride.McVety has previously thanked Ford on social media for helping to rescue “our 15th annual Jesus in the City parade” when it was cancelled with two weeks’ notice by the city of Toronto in 2014. Ford was on city council at the time. “We tried to get it restored but to no avail,” McVety added in a Feb. 6, 2018 post. “I bumped into Doug Ford and he said I will fix it. He dragged me onto the (city) council floor to the city manager’s desk and he saved the parade.”McVety did not reply to a query about his role in the parade, but noted in the same post that Ford “is a faithful man and marches in the parade.” He asked readers to support Ford for Progressive Conservative leader last year to bring “a new direction to save our children and restore the economy.”The NDP said it’s curious the event received provincial funding when other events like SuperCrawl, an arts and music festival in Hamilton, did not get money this year as Celebrate Ontario was trimmed by Ford’s Progressive Conservative government.“I smell another gravy train ticket for one of his cronies,” said New Democrat MPP Jill Andrew (Toronto-St. Paul’s). “This is a chronic issue for the Ford government.”McVety told the Star he did not apply for the money, saying that was handled by Ayanna Solomon, president of Festival of Praise International, whi ...
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