Mississauga mayor applauded for standing by her remarks to mosque opponent

Mississauga’s mayor is being applauded for standing up against racism after she called out a resident for an anti-mosque website and flyer.

“While others talk the talk you walk the walk. You are our rock Madam Mayor,” real estate agent Moezzam Saeed Alvi tweeted Thursday after Mayor Bonnie Crombie said she would not issue a public apology to residents in the city’s northwest neighbourhood of Meadowvale who are lobbying against a proposed mosque.

Crombie accused one resident of hate mongering during a Sept. 21 planning and development committee meeting. In a deputation, Meadowvale resident Kevin Johnston spoke about traffic concerns, as well as taxpayers having to pay for water and sewer hook-ups to the proposed mosque but the municipality not receiving any revenue back because places of worship are not taxed.

Crombie asked Johnston if he had handed out flyers and created a website that also spoke about concerns regarding an increase in vandalism, crime and a loss of freedom of speech if the mosque went ahead. He indicated he had.

“This is heinous. This is hate-mongering,” Crombie said during the meeting, a video of which is on YouTube. She held up a printed out copy of Johnston’s stopthemosque.com website, which has since been changed. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

During this week’s council meeting, a petition was brought forward calling on Crombie to publicly apologize. She refused.

On Thursday, Crombie was unavailable for an interview, but said in a written statement to Yahoo Canada News that she “will not apologize for standing up to those who seek to divide us.”

“I will always speak out against hateful language, which is unacceptable at any time,” she said.

“I called this resident out for his comments. I will not apologize for that. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it exactly the same way.”

Council approved a zoning application to allow the Meadowvale Islamic Centre to build a mosque on what was residential land.

Coun. Pat Saito was the only council member to vote against rezoning the land. On her Facebook page, Saito called Crombie’s refusal to apologize “a very sad day.” In a statement on her website, Saito also said she was angry some residents in the Meadowvale area were labelled racist.

“This was an insult to the residents of Ward 9 and shows disrespect for the concerns of our community,” she said.

On Twitter, Johnston thanked Saito and called her “the best city councillor in Mississauga.”

Attempts to contact Johnston on Thursday were unsuccessful.

In the hours after the Wednesday council meeting and on Thursday, Crombie retweeted a number of people who supported her stance. Some tweeted their support using the hashtag #IStandWithCrombie.

“@BonnieCrombie is courage exemplified for calling out bigotry when she saw it. No reason to apologize,” user @indohistoricus wrote.

“Calgary’s got (Mayor Naheed) @Nenshi, Mississauga’s got @BonnieCrombie. Great mayors who not afraid to stand up and speak up,” @SaimaSHussain tweeted.