Quebec politicians pan Muslim housing plan

MONTREAL — Nabil Warda says he just wants to make it easier for Muslims who believe that paying interest is a sin to buy a house. So last month he had an email sent to members of a suburban Montreal mosque to gauge interest in a housing project with a halal financing arrangement that would skirt the need to pay interest on a conventional mortgage.

Radio-Canada broke news of the “Muslim housing project” planned for Brossard on Monday and, within 24 hours, the three main parties in the National Assembly had denounced it.

Premier Philippe Couillard, speaking Tuesday in Morocco, where he is attending the United Nations climate conference, worried non-Muslims would face discrimination.

“Discrimination works in both directions, and so does inclusion; we are in favour of mixed housing for cultural communities and religious groups,” Couillard said.

The proposal to build up to 80 homes became a hot issue in the legislature, where members unanimously adopted a motion Tuesday directing the Minister of Municipal Affairs to inform municipalities that “no real-estate development can be based on religious or ethnic segregation.”

At a time when restricting religious attire is a recurring theme in Quebec political debate and when some of the province’s municipalities have blocked proposals for new mosques, the proposed housing project could be seen as a defensive gesture. But Warda said that is not the case. “A lot of Muslims have problems with the idea of interest, which in Arabic is called riba,” Warda said. “That means if you pay more than you were loaned, you are doing something that is very, very, very, very, bad from the Muslim point of view.”

He said interest can be circumvented thorough an arrangement in which a house is bought by the bank and then the resident buys it back over time, paying a premium that is considered the bank’s profit, and not interest.

Warda said non-Muslims would be welcome to move into his project of prefabricated homes, but they would have to share the values of their Muslim neighbours.