Building mosques as economic strategy

This Globe article makes for some thought-provoking reading: it details how Prince George, BC is building a mosque and Islamic cultural and educational centre in the hopes of luring in the high-skilled workers it desperately needs.

Interestingly, this comes at a time when some citizens of the western world – in a decade likely to be defined by 9/11 and the sudden economic downturn near its close – are being taken in by the dark side of xenophobia and anti-immigrant finger-pointing (see this week’s European Parliament election results).

While it was undoubtedly in the works for some time, Prince George’s announcement dovetails nicely with Barack Obama’s recent overtures to the Muslim world. His message of peace – eloquently quoted from the Koran last week – was no doubt expressed also in the hopes of achieving not just social objectives, but economic objectives: in this case, economic stability, improved trade and access to markets, and an end to the costly and controversial military conflicts that continue to rage through many Islamic regions of Africa and Asia.

The likely role that Prince George’s mosque will play in its future might also bear some comparison with the role the Winnipeg Central Mosque (or WCM) plays in the West End neighbourhood’s development. Open in 2004, the mosque is a resource and prayer centre for the local Muslim community, which must be quite large if the crowds that can be seen coming to and leaving the centre are any indication. The WCM, along with the Halal food shops I also see opening up in the neighbourhood, likely represent both a sign of and a draw for local and immigrating Muslims.

While Winnipeg continues to face its own significant skilled labour shortages, there is also hope that the WCM, along with other West End developments, represents a new wave of community pride in the neighbourhood, which many suburban Winnipeggers may have long written off as lost to prostitution and crime. Along with neighbours such as the Ellice Café & Theatre, the Black Sheep Diner, and the new West End Cultural Centre, the WCM is one of a number of growing spaces of vibrancy in an area long characterized by its pockets of vibrancy.

If Prince George’s strategy works to its benefit – and I think it will to some degree – this will only fuel the debate over what religious, cultural or artistic investments a city or region can make to successfully lure and then settle new migrants to ultimately benefit its own economy (take note, Richard Florida).

Governments of course have a long-running preference for investing in large "bricks and mortar" type projects that have more finite, predictable, and mathematically-derivable estimates of economic impact than something more indirectly beneficial like a mosque. Of course, those same "bricks and mortar" projects usually bring in office drones who extend the morning Tim Horton's lineups even further down the street but who, like clockwork, quickly desert the neighbourhood to the shadows a moment after 5 pm.

Maybe building mosques and other types of community centres is a better strategy for developing thriving neighbourhoods and healthy economies.


Photo: Istanbul's Blue Mosque, also known as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, was built between 1609 and 1616. It is renowned for its more than 20,000 handmade blue ceramic tiles and six minarets.

A punditry-inspiring week

What a week. While being buried in my work life, I've seen about 50 blog-worthy topics pass me by. See here for a small sampling of the utter ridiculousness. I've commented on a few items that provoked some thoughts.

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Quite a new low for the Liberals this week -- they're actually introducing a motion in the House of Commons blaming the NDP and Bloc for voting to defeat them in 2005. To quote Warren Kinsella: "Lord God Almighty, the Liberal Party of Canada needs help."

Mr. Dion and friends seem to be under the impression that their fellow parties are to blame for ending the long Liberal reign in Ottawa. Do they forget the voters who booted them out in the election that followed their defeat? Rather than pointing the finger for alleged wrongs committed by everyone else, can they not take some responsibility for the corruption and bad decisions that appeared endemic to their own party? Does the Liberal Party not look in the mirror and wonder if the source of their own troubles is staring right back at them?

It's more of the unspeakable arrogance we've seen before. Sounds like they're badly in need of some reflection time, of exactly the sort that comes with lounging in opposition for a long, long time.

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Speaking of Kinsella, he's calling the US Presidential race for McCain in the wake of the seemingly endless Democratic nomination race. I wouldn't go so far as to call it yet, but he's right - I'm worried about the Democrats' chances. The added months of publicity, fundraising, and organizing time that the Republicans have while the Democrats scrap it up can't be underestimated. When the dust settles in the Democratic nomination and the winner emerges, expect the Republicans to be well-prepared, waiting with boats of money and a battalion of attack ads.

It's a damn shame.

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A lot of people were shocked at the Alberta election results, particularly by the huge increase in Conservative seats at the expense of all three other parties that were represented in the Legislature. That came despite a whole lot of talk about voters being in a mood for change.

The result can be chalked up entirely to the Tory increase in Edmonton, which is the only part of the province where the opposition parties have a large concentration of seats. Tory increases in the opposition heartland, combined with slippage in parts of the province where it doesn't really make a difference (e.g., Calgary) equals a big increase in the majority.

At a glance, the overall popular vote didn't shift by a massive amount -- the Conservatives went up from 47% in 2004 to 53% in 2008, while the Liberals dropped three points to 26% and the NDP dropped one point to 9%. That's not a cataclysmic shift. For all the talk about the new Wildrose Alliance on the right, their 7% this time is below the 9% their 2004 counterpart earned. The Greens crept up from 3% to 5%, mostly as a result of two high-profile candidates who did well, but didn't come close to winning.

In Edmonton, though, the Tories soared from 31% to 43%, while the Liberals dropped from 41% to 33%. The NDP lost three points to land at 18%, which was enough to cost the two of their four seats, sadly including that of former leader Ray Martin. I wonder if Edmonton Liberal popularity in the Klein years was driven to some degree by Ralph Klein himself. The former Premier was a high-profile and not uncontroversial Calgarian, something that might not have entirely endeared him to voters in rival city Edmonton. Remove the Klein and see the Liberal balloon deflate, despite what most pundits agree was a better-run campaign by the party.

A big disappointment is that the voter turnout has dropped yet again, this time to a mere 41%. It's no coincidence that the lowest voter turnout in Canada happens to be in the province that's our closest thing to one-party state. There's not much point in voting when the outcome's pre-determined, so why bother? The Tories now have won a mandate based on 53% of 41% or about 22% of the electorate. How low does it have to get -- in Alberta or in any voting jurisdiction --before people start to question the government's very legitimacy? What then?

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Ed Schreyer, Manitoba's resident loose cannon ex-Premier, sure had something to say recently. Can you blame him? Did the boosters of Waverley West not do any research on the technical requirements associated with installing geothermal energy before announcing the project? Sounds to me like "geothermal" was a nice-sounding term some folks decided to slap in their PowerPoint presentations when it came time to do the dirty job of selling sprawl. It's more than a little disappointing.

The Rise and Sprawl has a some good comments on the topic.

Photo: Downtown Edmonton. The city shifted quite dramatically toward the Alberta Conservatives this week.