Thousands sign petition opposing proposed Thornhill condos backed by Muslim group
February 4, 2014
Global News
By James Armstrong
A group of Thornhill residents is concerned about a new development proposed for their neighbourhood. It’s a high-density mix of 3 storey townhomes and 2 apartment buildings rising 17 storeys high.
It’s being proposed by the Islamic Shia Ithna-Asheri Jamaat, a group running the Ja’ffari community centre currently located at the site.
The Ja’ffari Community Centre has been at the 9000 Bathurst Street in Thornhill since 1979.
The development also includes space for multiple sports facilities and a large playing field at the northwest corner near Apple Blossom Drive.
A public meeting is being held at Vaughan City Hall Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. where those concerned with the development are expected to voice their opposition.
The application for development would require changing the city’s official plan to re-designate the area as high-density.
As of 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, over 3,000 people had signed a petition requesting the city to “refuse the application for the huge re-development of the above lands and development of 2 high rise buildings.”
Councillor Sandra Yeung Racco thinks many of those who signed the petition have a legitimate concern; it would require changing the city’s official plan.
“They are upset and I think rightly so because they hear of an application coming forward that doesn’t really conform to the official plan and the zoning so they are upset about that,” she said.
Tuesday’s meeting is being held to account for the concerns of the community and take them to the applicant who is given a chance to meet those demands, Racco said.
But Racco said the concerns must be related to planning.
“What we want to hear are real planning issues, planning impacts that will be impacting their neighbourhoods,” she said. “Whether it should be traffic or density or heights or shadowing, any of those things.”
But for Meir Weinstein, the director of the Jewish Defence League of Canada, the high-density buildings themselves are not his primary concern, but instead the supposed ideology of its founders.
“The organizers of this proposal have stated quite clearly, publically, that they want Muslim only condos,” Weinstein said. “People want everyone who’s moderate to move in, people who are inclusive to move in.”
Weinstein was critical of the community centre’s Imam Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi who once participated in a pro-Islamic Republic of Iran conference at Carleton University.
According to Ipolitics.ca, the conference recognized the 23rd anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and was co-sponsored by the now-closed Iranian Embassy in Ottawa.
Ipolitics.ca reported in Feb. 2013 that Rizvi told conference participants that Khomeini proved that Islam is a “complete code of life that can govern all aspects of society.”
Rizvi was also connected to the East End Madrassah which was investigated, but faced no charges, for an allegedly anti-Jewish curriculum.
Soon after the curriculum was made public, Rizvi wrote an open letter apologizing for the “failure within [The East End Madrassah’s] internal system that has enabled unauthorized content to be included in the textbook without appropriate review,” according to a letter posted on Iqra.org
He continued that the Ja’ffari community centre has worked with the MOSAIC Interfaith Group and has been awarded the Harmony Award along with the Temple Har Zion for “promoting Canadian values.”
“While the revelation of the existence of inappropriate language used in the material on the East End Madrassah (EEM) website is hurtful to the Jewish community, and an unreserved apology has been offered to them, it was also hurtful to us because we sense that this may have disappointed our fellow citizens who have known us and what we stand for.”
No one officially representing the Ja’ffari Community Centre would speak to Global News about this story on Tuesday.
Shabeh Zahra, a Muslim mother of seven who lives across the street from the community centre and supports the development moved to Thornhill from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island because of the Muslim community.
She dismissed concerns about cultural differences and said the Muslim community has lived “in peace” with other religions and cultures in Thornhill for decades.
“In our religion, we learn the lesson that all people should live with peace,” she said. “It is a multicultural country and a lot of people will live together and respect the other religions.”
And Racco too suggested the concern among most who oppose the development is not cultural but practical.
“The bigger issue is that people don’t want to see these high-density, residential components into their neighbourhood because they feel that this is a low-residential neighbourhood and they should keep it to be compatible to their existing neighbourhood,” she said.
