We demand a public inquiry in reports of a high ranking military officer linked to decades of child abuse at an Ontario boarding school. 

The Fifth Estate’s recent program “School of Secrets'' described decades of horrific abuse at Grenville Christian College, an elite boarding school in Ontario.  It also revealed that Mr. Gordon Mintz worked there as a teacher, dean and headmaster right until its closing when the abuse became public.  The next year, he joined the military where he now goes by the title Lieutenant Colonel Mintz, and is the director of the Chaplain school.  A recent class action suit has proven that the alleged abuse was indeed real and horrifying, and this year, an appeal by the school’s defense team was brought down by three judges.  

Over the years, Mr. Mintz has denied the abuse and accused victims of lying, thus retraumatizing survivors time and time again.  When he testified at the trial in 2019, he again denied any knowledge of abuse during his 23 years at GCC.  And yet, several former students (and staff) testified that Mr. Mintz inflicted physical abuse, mental abuse, cruel and unusual punishment such as:

• examining a student’s genitals;
• extreme excercise sessions to the point of vomiting to “beat the gay out of you;”
• dragging children out of bed in the night for yelling sessions;
• using extreme “disciplines” without informing families, nor allowing the punished to call home;
• removing students from class for days or weeks of manual labour without informing their families;
• entering boy’s washrooms and humiliating and yelling at naked students;
• refusing to contact health professionals when students were suicidal;
• unauthorized and unwarranted searches of the boys’ dormitory; 
• using “bitches in heat” and “whores” when referring to girls in lectures to male students.

It is time for the Department of National Defense and the Canadian Armed Forces to take action.  They have, by their own admission, known about this since October 15, 2019.  We can no longer tolerate that our military continues to defend and harbour individuals whose pasts contain such harrowing tales.  Mr. Mintz cannot continue to provide guidance and direction to members of our troops.  Nothing but true transparency can prevail.  We hereby demand an independent inquiry to shine some light on how Mr. Mintz, with no army training, came to be employed so quickly after the closing of GCC, his involvement with the systemic abuse proven in court, and all his statements of denial of said abuse, in particular while under oath and in the employ of the Canadian Armed Forces.  

The Lightshiners

Learn more:

Click here to watch School of Secrets by the CBC’s The Fifth Estate.​

Click here to watch In the Name of God by CTV’s W5.

Click here to read a former student’s account.​

Click here to read the verdict supporting all claims of systemic abuse at GCC.