Church concerned with opposition group for proposed Muslim Prayer Centre
Posted Apr 21, 2017 05:13:43 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A local church is concerned after a meeting was held in its faith centre opposing a potential Muslim Prayer Centre in Waterloo.
The group called ‘Residents Opposing 510 Erbsville Rd. Rezoning‘ booked the space at Cedars Worship Centre this week, but did not allow anyone who supports the proposed prayer centre to join.
The local Muslim Association of Canada has proposed a rezoning of a property in order to build the new prayer centre and has been met with some local criticism, including a petition to stop the re-zoning application.
Posts from the opposition group on Facebook say concerns are with noise and traffic issues from construction in that area, not race or religion.
Donna Strickland, chair of the Westminster United Church council says she doesn’t believe that is the real problem.
“There are churches all over the neighbourhood so there is no reason there shouldn’t be a Muslim faith group in the neighbourhood,” says Strickland. “When we joined forces with Temple Shalom to build our building, we didn’t need rezoning, but I don’t know that anybody thought ‘oh no it’s the traffic that’s going to cause a problem.'”
“I think they were trying to be very careful in how they coached their opposition, but it feels like they’re opposing because it’s a Muslim group and that’s what we object to.”
The church wasn’t aware the meeting opposed a local Muslim Prayer Centre, and now they are reviewing their policies.
“We like to have an open-door policy the best we can,” says Strickland. “But we want to make sure, because we are open to everybody, we want people that use our space to be open to everybody.”
570 NEWS has reached out to members of the Facebook page ‘Residents Opposing 510 Erbsville Rd. Rezoning’ for a comment.
