Mosque-building booms in Ottawa-Gatineau

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 | 2:02 PM ET

CBC News

Muslims in the Ottawa region have worshipped in a former nightclub, the basement of a United Church and a former Bells Corners home in recent years, thanks to a space crunch that is now driving the construction of new mosques and the expansion of existing mosques.

'It's actually like a social place. It's an institution where people come and gather and meet each other. That's why there's a need.'— Bader Siddiqi, Ottawa Muslim Association

There were more than 40,000 Muslims in Ottawa and Gatineau in 2001, and Statistics Canada expects the number to more than double by 2011, thanks to immigration and a high birth rate.

A number of mosque construction projects have started in an effort to meet demand:

• The Assalam mosque bought a former nightclub in the Ottawa Business Park on St. Laurent Avenue a year ago and is using the space as it continues renovations.

  An artist's concept of the Omar mosque in Bells Corners, one of several now being constructed or expanded in the Ottawa area.
  (Jami Omar)

   
• The Omar mosque in Bells Corners has already excavated part of the foundation for a complex featuring a mosque, gym, school, community centre and seniors' residence on a four-acre property it recently bought. The complex will replace a Bells Corners home that in turn replaced space in a United Church.
• The Assunah Muslims Association has bought some land near Bank Street and Hunt Club Road in Ottawa South, where they plan to build a mosque to replace the space they currently rent.
• The Outaouais Islamic Centre in Gatineau has begun construction on a 1,200-square-metre mosque at Lois and St. Jean Bosco Roads, to replace a small prayer hall.
• The Bilal Masjid mosque in Ottawa's Orléans neighbourhood is looking to expand.
• The Kanata Muslim Association is fundraising and seeking a larger location to replace the space it now rents at a community centre.

Ottawa Muslim Association spokesperson Bader Siddiqi said local mosques serve the community in many ways.

"It's actually like a social place. It's an institution where people come and gather and meet each other," he said. "That's why there's a need."

Siddiqi said a single central mosque is no longer enough to serve a population spread through neighbourhoods from Kanata to Orléans to Gatineau.

Mustafa Ahmed has benefited from some of the new construction.

Mustafa Ahmed, second from right, sits in the Assalam mosque, which recently opened in a former nightclub in the Ottawa Business Park.
(CBC)

Ahmed, who works for OC Transpo, recalled that it was once a difficult, harried rush from work to Friday prayers at a faraway mosque and back to work.

Then the new Assalam mosque, which can accommodate hundreds of worshippers kneeling in rows on the green-carpeted floor, opened near his east-end Ottawa neighbourhood. 

"It's much easier," he said, as he chatted with several other members of the congregation in the mosque's sunny, airy main hall.

"I hope everybody, every location, every area, neighbourhood will get the same facilities I got [to] make it easier for them."