Jaworsky’s heavy hand helped all to speak up on zone change

Waterloo Mayor Dave Jaworsky laid down the rules with a firm hand Monday night.

More than 30 people came to city hall to offer their views on whether there should be a zone change allowing a house on Erbsville Road to be used as a Muslim prayer centre.

About 100 more were watching. The crowd was so big that TV monitors and folding chairs were set up in the lobby at city hall to handle the overflow.

In the year since the original request was made, the community discussion has been controversial, hostile, even anguished at times.

So when it finally came time for people to have their say before council’s vote, Jaworsky

said there would be no applause or booing tolerated from the spectators.

Nor would he allow derogatory comments made toward the applicants, city staff or councillors.

And “The topic of religion, race and culture is not encapsulated in the Planning Act,” he said. “It is not to be discussed tonight.”

Anyone who violated these conditions would get three warnings, he said, and after that he’d turn off the microphone and ask the speaker to leave.

As if to underscore his point, there were five security guards there, by my count.

Was this overkill? It’s a good question.

How can community opposition to a Muslim prayer centre be properly discussed, out of the context of the anti-Muslim times in which we find ourselves?

Listening to the discussion, I winced every time someone was interrupted.

There was the Wilfrid Laurier University professor who tried to talk about research in Toronto showing that technical concerns like traffic and noise are sometimes used to mask other forms of opposition.

The mayor stopped him twice. “We’re not here to talk about other people,” said Jaworsky.

The same thing happened to Rania Lawendy, an organizer of the prayer centre proposal. She mentioned that there are now 200 Muslim families in Laurelwood and “they need to have a safe space to worship. … Some of us feel attacked as a group.”

Jaworsky stopped her then, and she laughed it off. “You’re going to interrupt me a few times, don’t worry,” she said, and then added how unfortunate it is that a “message of racism and xenophobia” was a factor in this debate.

I found nothing in the city’s procedures bylaw that gives the mayor this kind of power.

It says no one shall speak to council on an item not on the agenda, and it says the public can’t have picket signs inside city hall. That’s it.

It’s fair to say that free speech took a back seat at this meeting.

But it’s also fair to say that by keeping the meeting as narrowly focused on planning issues as possible, Jaworsky made it easier for the minority to speak.

The vast majority of speakers approved of the prayer centre. Just three people spoke against the proposal.

They, too, stuck to the planning issues. They expressed concerns about the lack of a sidewalk near the centre, traffic backups on busy Erbsville Road when people try to turn onto the property, the size of a larger building that would be eventually planned for the site, and even the expected water consumption.

By turning down the heat, Jaworsky made it easier for this minority group to voice their concerns without feeling intimidated.