Toronto
TorontoSerge Attal/Flash 90

The Canadian public is reeling Friday, after several media outlets exposed this week that an Islamist organization had been given a grant by the City of Toronto to only allow Muslim tenants to live in a set of apartment complexes. 

According to a report from global television channel CTV, over 12 applications to the complex were rejected by the organization on grounds of "incompatible religious beliefs." All of them had been waitlisted for public housing in Toronto for years. 

Rose Raill, who had been waiting for over a decade for a vacancy, told the news outlet she received a letter stating that "if none of the individuals in your household are a member of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at … you will be removed from the waiting list." 

"That's just being racist," she said. "This is a multicultural country. The government has to step-up to this."

Another rejected applicant, a wheelchair-bound young man aged just 21, has been placed at a severe disadvantage after he has struggled to find a building with disability access. 

Toronto city officials insist that the discrimination is legal under Canadian law. 

"Part of fairness and equity in our housing unit is having a diverse range of housing options to service everybody," Toronto Community Housing board member and Coun. Joe Cressy stated to CTV. "If you're a senior, a person of a different background, whether you’re Chinese or German or Hungarian or a Christian or Muslim, we should have options that service you."

“The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at provides extra services in this building which are of interest only to the members of Ahmadiyya,” said Karim Ahman Tahir, the building’s manager. “If I’m providing a service which is not of interest to you, then you don’t get a benefit out of that.”

91,000 people are on the TCHC waiting list. 

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)