New temple for Hindu community in Canada

New temple for Hindu community
$5.6 million spent on Park Ex facility
JEFF HEINRICH, The Gazette


Published: Saturday, June 21
Montreal's small but burgeoning Hindu community will open a $5.6-million temple in Park Extension today, more than doubling the size of the old one that was there.

"It shows we're proud and happy to keep our traditions, our religion and our culture," said Harish Patel, president of the charity that built the temple.

Named after the Hindu deity Ram, Ramji Temple is on Durocher St. near Jarry St. W. It can hold 500 people.


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Harish Patel (left), president of the Temple Shree Ramjee association, talks with trustee Jayanntilal Patel (who is not a relative), about the opening of the new Park Extension temple this weekend.
JOHN MAHONEY THE GAZETTE

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Font:****"The old temple was 60 by 50 square feet. This one is 150 by 80," Patel, who owns a nearby Lajeunesse St. motel, said before a visit to the temple this week.

Also on the premises is a small language school (French for adults, Hindi and Gujarati for youths who already know French).

Construction under local architect Gurdip S. Trehin began 21/2 years ago. Money was raised from Hindu faithful in Montreal, Toronto and New York, Patel said. The two-storey temple sits next to a Sikh temple, proof that the two faiths get along well in Quebec, said Trehin, who himself is Sikh.

Bouyed by rising numbers of immigrants from India, Hinduism is growing here and throughout Canada.

The 2006 federal census did not ask people their religion, but in 2001, when it did, 24,530 Quebecers identified themselves as Hindu, up 74 per cent from 1991.

Across Canada, adherents of Hinduism doubled from from 0.3 per cent of all faiths in 1981 to 0.6 per cent in 1991, and nearly doubled again to one per cent in 2001.

Two-thirds of Hindus in Canada live in Ontario, but French-speaking Quebec has also attracted people of that faith, thanks to rising numbers of immigrants from South Asia.

In Montreal, 71,000 people are immigrants from South Asia, including many Hindus from India. The number of South Asians here has grown by 23 per cent since 2001.

"The Hindu community has been here for over 35 years," said Patel, who has lived in Montreal since 1972 and whose children were born and raised here.

"But we've been expanding a lot since the early '90s. People sponsor family members from India to come here and others have had their children here." This morning's 9 a.m. opening ceremony is timed to the Hindu calendar - "kind of like a horoscope, to bring good luck," Patel said. "It's the perfect moment."

jheinrich@ thegazette.canwest.com a