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This article discusses the religious discrimination and zoning rules in Quebec that are affecting religious centers. It explores a recent court victory and the clash between religious freedoms and zoning restrictions. The article highlights the fear and challenges faced by Muslims in establishing worship centers and calls for the protection of constitutional rights.

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In Quebec, fear of religious discrimination a zoning rule continues to clamp down religious
centers.
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Institution
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The story involves a court victory last month whereby another Islamic center in Montreal had a
warning that focused on infringing the religious freedoms within the society (Baker, 2018). The
story starts with a Muslim praying in Islamic Badr in Montreal Thursday, January 2019. The
court judge rules on banning the religious centers on zoning areas violate member's
constitutional rights.
In Montreal, one night during Ramadhan the suburb of Mascouche dispatched inspector in
Muslim centers to inspect any unlawful activity in the center. The inspectors found that more
than 20 people who were praying and this was enough to declare the building illegal place
ownership. The Montreal revoked the centers operating permit (Baumard & Chevallier, 2015).
The clash is now in courts and this forms the latest example on religious conflicts facing the
society. The zoning restrictions currently are deterring the Muslims to establish worship centers.
There is, therefore, a real fear inside the entire population that is around the mosques. This
mischievous practice raised the issue in the whole country and that's why Haroun Bouazi the co-
president of Muslims and Arabs blamed the political leaders for not fighting for the rights of
citizens in the nation (Bell & De-Shalit, 2013). The co-president stated that; "What is important
is that our politician that is Mayor (Denis) have failed to cool down the situation in Canada and
everyone should understand that all Muslims in Quebec is just like any other religious groups in
Canada and they deserve the constitutional rights to access places of worship without any
restrictions."
Therefore, on the surface, the increased notion on whether Quebec should not be a good place for
worship it seems laughable. Different people such as Mark Taiwan describes Quebec as a city
whereby one cannot throw a stone without breaking windows of church buildings and mosque

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(Beschle, 2018). The city remains the religious figure for the nation but eliminating the religious
buildings raises much concern. The city also has Christian churches which occupy the prime
sectors that are zoned for worship. The area is surrounded by a large number of immigrants. The
current reports have indicated the places of worship of the minority group have been identified
technically illegal centers because the zoning policies won't allow the places of worship in
Quebec (Boyd, 2016).This made the municipal officials and leaders clamp down and thus try as
possible to cool citizens who were nervous about the mosque operating around the city. The
Muslims such as the Mascouche, Terrebonne and those in Shawinigan and also a number of
Muslims in Montreal have experienced obstacles with the new zoning mosque policies. On
January 12, the Superior court led by Jean –Yves Lalonde tried to provide hope to the group in
favor of Badr Islamic Center in Montreal. He responded to the complaints from the groups where
he attended a prayer session on Friday the same month and he assured the group to fight for
religious rights in the country (Gasher et al., 2016).
Judges in superior court found that the change violated the centers' rights to access religious
rights but they went further to indicate that the subsequent zoning changes infringed the
constitutional powers and there was the need to offer religious freedoms in the society. Lalonde
one of the judges wrote that "This measure basically adopted the same situation in the city back
in 2010 (Malik & Mulay, 2016). This situation resembled what was experienced on
discrimination of Catholic churches that are typically the residents' zones for some groups in
Montreal." One of the researchers known as Frederic Dejean in his work once said that religious
zoning has been the major aspect that restricts the evangelical Christians, Muslims, the Jehovah's
Witnesses, and Hassidic Jews. Dejean said that there was a need for practical rules which could

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be controlling the inspectors from being tasked with the mandate of deciding whether a zone
should constitute a religious center in a country. He further argued that most of the religious
discrimination practices are interconnected by the political motives who focus to mistreat the
minorities in society (Turkmen-Dervisoglu, 2016). However, we have groups have emerged as
champions in matters related to religious challenges. For example in Mascouche, the Essalam
Community Center fully won the last July pending decision in the court on the same challenge
experienced by Muslims in Montreal. The court said that the municipality was in hasty to
identify the center as a point prohibiting prayers within its wall but this argument had no apt
basis. The spokesperson of the center in the court declined this comment and this allowed the
court to rule underuse of constitution thus granting the religious group their rights.
Therefore, to sum up, I think religious institutions should be fully lawful to any residential area
in society or within the country. Grey, the lawyer who was representing the Essalam community
in the court argued that Quebec's support on the secularism followed the quiet revolution that
facilitated aspect of rejection in the entire religion (Winter, 2014). The discrimination affected
the rights of immigrants who had been highly affected in the country. Therefore, to me, I think
religious movements should consider the principle of zoning with respect to religious policies
and rules within society and also within the country. The issue is that religious centers need to be
lawful in any residential area they may be carrying out their normal religious activities. The co-
president of Muslims in Canada argued that challenges experienced by religious groups in
owning worship centers are due to lack of appropriate political leadership strategies (Woodside
& Zhang, 2013). The political arena has forgotten the rights of minorities and this has facilitated
institutional exclusion, for example, the religious centers being excluded to own residential areas

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for worship. The court system, therefore, should ensure all policies and rules related to religious
rights are fully adhered and followed by any person or any subject in the country.
References
Baker, D. (2018). World religions and national states: Competing claims in East Asia.
In Transnational Religion and Fading States, 6(90), (pp. 144-172).
Baumard, N., & Chevallier, C. (2015). The nature and dynamics of world religions: a life-history
approach. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282(1818),
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Bell, D. A., & De-Shalit, A. (2013). The spirit of cities: Why the identity of a city matters in a
global age,6th edition.Princeton University Press.
Beschle, D. L. (2018). No More Tiers? Proportionality As an Alternative to Multiple Levels of
Scrutiny in Individual Rights Cases, 38 Pace L. Rev. 384 (2018).
Boyd, R. (2016). No Sanctuary for Asylum-Seekers: The Impact of Canada’s Refugee Policies
on South Asian Women Claimants in Quebec. In The Search for Lasting
Peace,6(89), (pp. 119-132).
Gasher, M., Brin, C., Crowther, C., KIng, G., Salamon, E., & Thibault, S. (Eds.).
(2016). Journalism in crisis: Bridging theory and practice for democratic media
strategies in Canada,6th edition.University of Toronto Press.

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Malik, L., & Mulay, S. (2016). No Sanctuary for Asylum-Seekers: The Impact of Canada’s
Refugee Policies on South Asian Women Claimants in Quebec1. The Search for Lasting
Peace: Critical Perspectives on Gender-Responsive Human Security, 5(80),103.
Turkmen-Dervisoglu, G. (2016). United in Religion, Divided by Ethnicity?: Why Islam Fails as
A Supranational Identity in Turkey,4th edition,Yale University.
Winter, E. (2014). Becoming Canadian: Making sense of recent changes to citizenship
rules. IRPP study, (44), 1.
Woodside, A. G., & Zhang, M. (2013). Cultural diversity and marketing transactions: Are market
integration, large community size, and world religions necessary for fairness in
ephemeral exchanges?. Psychology & Marketing, 30(3), 263-276.