When Toronto City Hall’s rotunda filled up last week with the supporters of a Scarborough mosque, people who were watching shrugged.
The protest was meant to disrupt a city council meeting, but didn’t. Mayor John Tory was away. The leader of Sakinah Community Centre spoke to some reporters, saying the mayor and city were trying to drive Muslims out of Toronto.
Soon enough, everyone went home. But that won’t be the end of it.
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Just as homes in the city are becoming more unaffordable for families, faith groups, especially those supported by newcomers, are feeling squeezed out too.
What brought Sakinah supporters downtown was desperation. The city shut their mosque and school down a year ago, officially for safety reasons, but also because Sakinah occupies an industrial building.
Drive around industrial areas in Toronto’s inner suburbs, and you see places of worship and private schools. Industrial buildings remain relatively cheap, but in 2013, the city closed that door with a new bylaw.
The discrimination Sakinah’s imam, Said Rageah, was talking about is economic. He’s arguing the city knows faith groups like his can’t triple their budget to get buildings with commercial zoning.
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“By banning our places of worship and schools you are telling us to live elsewhere. We will not,” he says in a letter to Tory.
“This will not end. This is a human-rights issue.”
Sakinah established itself around the time the bylaw took effect and disagrees with city officials about what happened. Its leadership may have made a big mistake, but after renovating the building, it must fight for it.
In the inner suburbs, Sakinah’s choices aren’t unique, and this problem will worsen as more faith groups come into conflict with the city.
Tory says the city will work with the Toronto Real Estate Board “to ensure that other religious groups are informed of where they can legally operate.”
But reminding real estate agents of their professional standards is not the same as solving the problem.
A city which welcomes diversity and protects religious groups must do more for them besides explaining they now need to find much more expensive properties to call home.
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