Sir James Douglas, often hailed as the Father of British Columbia, looms large in the collective memory of the community where I was raised. His legacy is not just remembered—it is revered. Yet to venerate him without scrutiny is to ignore the dissonances embedded within his story. As Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company and later colonial governor, Douglas blurred the lines between private profit and public duty. He granted monopolistic privileges to his own company and family, weaving personal gain into the colonial fabric.

His governance reflected this entanglement. By imposing property-based voting qualifications, Douglas effectively disenfranchised broad swaths of the population. The treaties he negotiated with First Nations—especially the Douglas Treaties—were signed under suspect conditions, often on blank sheets with terms inserted after the fact. Indigenous signatories, unaware of the full scope of these agreements, unknowingly surrendered immense tracts of land. During the gold rush, Douglas’s heavy-handed licensing policies and delayed responses to conflicts such as the Fraser Canyon War did little to protect Indigenous communities. Violence erupted, and villages burned. He also recruited Black settlers from California, less out of egalitarianism than political expediency, hoping to secure their loyalty in a shifting demographic landscape.

Douglas, a man of Guyanese descent married to a Cree woman, defies easy categorization. His legacy is not a matter of simple condemnation or celebration but a duality of ambition and exploitation, idealism and self-interest. That tension remains deeply embedded in Fort Langley today—a township marked by contradictions and inhabited by a curious coalition of hipster intellectual farmers, affluent Evangelical Christians, and politically active citizens whose reach extends into federal spheres.

I speak from within this complexity. Having served on heritage committees in both Fort Langley and the broader Township of Langley, I can attest to how seriously locals take the idea of heritage—even when that heritage proves inconvenient. One elder committee member, a Euro-Canadian woman, once snapped at me during a meeting, “I know who you are,” a remark steeped in latent hostility and social surveillance. These tensions are not abstract; they have shaped my lived experience.

The more recent history of Fort Langley intersects uncomfortably with the Evangelical presence centered around Trinity Western University (TWU). That story begins with a scandal. In 2005, TWU faced a human rights complaint involving Neil Snider, the longest-serving university president in Canadian history. Snider had helmed the university for 32 years, overseeing significant growth and cultivating a powerful institutional identity. Within the Evangelical lexicon, he was believed to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

But his 2006 retirement came on the heels of sexual misconduct allegations. Internal reports and media scrutiny questioned the administration’s handling of the matter. The community, understandably embarrassed, responded with a familiar instinct: concealment. I understand this impulse; religious institutions often circle the wagons when confronted with such crises. A colleague’s mother once rationalized Snider’s behavior to me by saying, “He was lonely,” referencing a deceased or estranged spouse. Such rationalizations reveal much about the elasticity of excuse-making within tightly-knit religious communities.

ChristianWeek’s article “Trinity Western resolves human rights complaint” documented the complaint and its settlement, prompting internal policy reviews. Interviews with former faculty hinted at deeper discontent. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) conducted an inquiry that focused on TWU’s Community Covenant—a document that faculty were required to sign, affirming a particular set of religious beliefs and behaviors. Scholars William Bruneau and Thomas Friedman raised alarms about how such requirements might suppress academic freedom and skew hiring practices. Their findings remain a touchstone in Canadian academic discourse.

By 2011, TWU and similar institutions became acutely aware of their public image. That year, the Institute for Canadian Values ran a controversial advertisement opposing LGBTQ-inclusive education, supported by the Canada Christian College and published in the National Post and the Toronto Sun. The backlash was swift and widespread. While the Post issued a retraction, the Sun did not.

From 2005 to 2015, TWU faced mounting internal and external pressures. Archival memos and former administrators revealed dissent over enforced religious conformity. Most Christian universities in Canada are private and Evangelical, and TWU, as the largest among them, became a symbol of these tensions. Repeated journalistic efforts to speak with dissenting students and faculty were mostly rebuffed, though a few agreed to off-the-record conversations. They painted a portrait of an institution governed by rigid executives, indifferent to internal diversity and unresponsive to calls for reform.

By 2016, discontent spilled into online spaces. Students and alumni criticized the university’s treatment of LGBTQ individuals. One former student described an environment where coming out was fraught, even dangerous. Another pointed to a “thriving rape culture,” claiming that multiple victims remained silent out of fear they would be disbelieved or shamed.

Maclean’s examined these themes in its article “The end of the religious university?” linking early administrative policies to the mounting legal and cultural backlash. The BBC reported on TWU’s attempt to open a law school, branding it a homophobic institution. These reports laid the groundwork for what would become a landmark Supreme Court case.

Xtra Magazine, a Canadian queer news site hosted on Medium, in-depth coverage featured searing testimonials from LGBTQ students, revealing systemic marginalization. Legal journals dissected the Supreme Court decision that ultimately denied TWU accreditation for its law school, arguing that the Community Covenant clashed with constitutional equality rights. The ruling, a decisive 7-2 verdict, signaled a turning point.

In response, TWU amended its policy to make the Covenant optional for students. However, as a Reddit poster, purportedly a current student, pointed out, the decision was driven by accreditation pressures and business concerns, rather than a moral awakening. Faculty and staff remain bound by the Covenant, and TWU’s mission to produce “godly Christian leaders” remains intact.

From 2019 to 2021, TWU’s cultural inertia persisted. In a piece for Xtra, Carter Sawatzky noted that the policy change had little impact on the campus climate. “TWU has doubled down on its social conservatism, at the expense of queer students like myself,” he wrote. One particularly jarring episode involved a student who attempted suicide and was subsequently expelled. TWU cited “inability to self-regulate” as justification. Mental health professionals and advocates viewed the move as indicative of systemic failings. The Toronto Star and CBC News covered the case, placing it within a broader national concern about campus mental health.

In 2021, the Langley Advance Times reported that TWU denied a student group’s request to host an LGBTQ storytelling night. Sawatzky again spoke out, emphasizing that sharing personal narratives should not be controversial. Yet, the university deemed the event incompatible with Evangelical values.

The scandals deepened. CBC News reported on the conviction of a TWU security guard for manslaughter. The article, “Former guard at B.C. university found guilty of manslaughter,” detailed an incident from Fall 2020 involving “a man wearing all black” who had wandered into student residences and was seen rifling through belongings. Security guard Howard Glen Hill confronted the intruder, Jack Cruthers Hutchison, and, according to reports, struck him in the head, pulled his hair, and spat on him. When police arrived, Hill was “in a neck restraint, limp and unresponsive.” He died two days later in the hospital. Hutchison was ultimately charged with manslaughter. TWU responded with a brief statement: “The university has no comment on the court ruling. TWU’s commitment has always been to safeguard our campus community, and we continue to provide a safe place of learning for all our students.”

Langley Union, in its piece titled “Trinity Western University President’s Son Linked to Prolific White Nationalist Account,” reported on digital forensic evidence tying the TWU president’s son to a high-profile white nationalist social media presence. While the son’s actions must be considered distinct from those of his father and the institution, the connection nonetheless raised serious concerns and made headlines.

The account associated with the son posted incendiary content, including statements such as: “I believe in a white future. An Aryan future. A future where my children will make Indian Bronson shine our shoes. Where brown people cannot secure a line of credit, Black people pick cotton. We will win – this is what we fight for,” and “I am a colonialist. I make no effort to hide this. I believe in worldwide white supremacy.”

The Nelson Star added further dimension to the regional picture in its report, “‘Alt-right’ group uses Fort Langley historic site as meeting place.” The article described how a local pub in Fort Langley had become a regular gathering site for an openly self-identified white nationalist group. As one former supervisor once observed to me, “I don’t know what is wrong with we the white race.” That may be a sentiment rather than a structured ideology, but it still reveals a troubling cultural undercurrent. This entire microcosm offers a glimpse into the broader and often uneasy intersections of race, religion, and identity in Canadian sociopolitics—particularly among some Evangelical enclaves where allegations of racialism, if not outright racism, occasionally surface.

TWU officially promotes a policy called Inclusive Excellence. Its public statement reads: “We aim to promote a consistent atmosphere of inclusion and belonging at TWU by establishing a shared commitment to diversity and equity founded in the gospel’s truth. Christ came to save, reconcile, and equip all people (Rev. 7:9), and the incredible array of gifts God has given us is evidence of his creativity, beauty, and love of diversity.” Yet, one administrator reportedly commented informally that a particular event was “not in line with Evangelical values.”

These contradictions are not isolated to Langley. In the United States, the legacy of racial exclusion within Christian education remains evident. Bob Jones University, for example, banned interracial dating until the year 2000, sparking debates about federal funding and accreditation. In Australia, Christian colleges have come under scrutiny for enforcing policies that exclude LGBTI+ students and faculty. The United Kingdom has also experienced friction between faith-based institutional codes and national equality laws, though generally with less intensity than in Canada. Meanwhile, American Evangelical influence continues to spread in Canada, particularly in Indigenous communities. Some Canadian churches, for example, now have Ojibwe pastors—a sign of both cultural engagement and contested terrain.

A Xtra Magazine piece titled “The Painful Truth About Being Gay at Canada’s Largest Christian University” chronicled the experience of a gay student, pseudonymously called Jacob. When peers suspected him of being gay, they sent messages like, “We hate everything about you, and you better watch your back because we are going to kill you on your way to school.” Despite the threats, Jacob said, “I loved the community here so much that I did not want to jeopardize those relationships.” That’s what it means to live in the closet—not out of denial, but out of preservation.

Another student, Corben from Alberta, explained, “My parents, I think, kind of wanted Trinity to be for me sort of like reparative therapy, which is why they would only help financially with this school.” Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau led a legislative effort to ban conversion therapy—a pseudoscientific practice aimed at altering a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Since 2016, the practice has been outlawed in Malta, Germany (2020), France (2022), Canada (2022), New Zealand (2022), Iceland (2023), Spain (2023), Mexico (2024), Greece (2024), and Belgium (2024). Still, that was TWU, and Fort Langley—where I grew up—is inextricably tied to this institution and its shadow.

The Langley Advance Times reported on a blackface incident in a 2017 Chilliwack school yearbook, part of a “mock trial.” The justification, like others before it, relied on the thin defense of context. Just as excuses were made for Snider’s legacy, they surface again in episodes like this. British Columbia has not been immune to clerical sexual misconduct, either. The Archdiocese of Vancouver became the first in Canada to publicly name priests involved in decades of abuse. Other prominent cases, including those of Michael Conaghan, Damian Lawrence Cooper, and Erlindo Molon, reflect a broader pattern of clerical exploitation and institutional evasion of accountability. I wish this weren’t the truth, but it is the history we have.

In 2022, a TWU dean resigned under pressure for her stance on gender issues. A Reddit user alleged that TWU administrators had “tried to make her leave her position as dean because she… stated she was an LGBTQ+ ally,” only to follow her resignation with impersonal bureaucratic statements of loss and regret.

From living there, I can attest that excuses like these are often recycled in local social media threads. Community intimidation is real, and it’s not just socially corrosive—it’s bad for business. What’s being protected isn’t morality, but image. As many LGBTQ students at TWU have experienced, and as many outsiders to the broader community have learned, the resistance isn’t grounded in theology; it’s rooted in public relations. Langley is a wealthy place in a wealthy country, and money often determines what is spoken, forgotten, or buried. The Fort Langley Night Market was repeatedly shut down due to vandalism and alcohol-related incidents—another example of how image management takes precedence over genuine community repair.

Discussions continue online about the quality of a TWU degree. One comment captures the sentiment: “So before anyone says ‘it’s an immigration scam,’ it’s not—but most of TWU’s programs are essentially useless for immigrating to Canada. Any non-degree program from a private school disqualifies you from applying for a PGWP. That said, it does offer a couple of degree programs that may lead to one.”

Local disputes are not confined to institutional campuses. Brandon Gabriel, an Indigenous artist, and Eric Woodward, a developer and now mayor, have been at odds for more than a decade. Their conflict echoes older colonial dynamics. Gabriel represents the pushback against erasure; Woodward has painted buildings pink in protest, a showy symbol of his frustration with regulatory and cultural resistance. Woodward has his supporters—those eager for development—and his detractors. He embodies another complicated figure in Langley’s contemporary political landscape. As ever, a minority of loud actors project their theatrics onto a quieter public that endures the consequences.

Between institutionalized LGBTI discrimination, local blackface scandals, and latent homophobia, Langley is not an outlier—it’s a microcosm. Christian white nationalist undercurrents are not unheard of here. That they exist alongside the veneration of a colonial founder who was a mixed-race timocratic administrator married to a Cree woman is no contradiction at all in Canada—it’s continuity. It shows how unexamined myths crystallize into social realities.

Welcome to Langley—a light introduction. Home, sorta.