OLDCORN: Regina is not Riyadh — time to enforce noise bylaws on mosque loudspeakers

The Islamic call to prayer blasted from four weatherproof horn speakers mounted on all four sides of Regina City Jamia Masjid mosque. The "sound test" lasted roughly three minutes. Mosque representatives called it a "historic milestone." The rest of Regina should call it what it is: a warning siren.The mosque broadcast its first live outdoor Adhan (Muslim call to prayer) at 1 pm CST on June 19, using a newly installed permanent sound system. The mosque's own media advisory boasted about the "four weatherproof horn speakers mounted on all four sides of the mosque building" — a setup designed to project Arabic chanting in every direction across downtown Regina. .This was not some quiet, internal religious observance. This was a deliberate projection of faith into public space, using amplification technology specifically chosen for sending sound long distances.The mosque's statement thanked the City of Regina, Regina Police Service, and local media for their "support and understanding." But here is the question nobody at city hall seems willing to ask: what bylaw, what vote, and what public consultation permitted this mosque to install a permanent outdoor loudspeaker system in the first place?Regina's Noise Abatement Bylaw No. 6980 prohibits "any unreasonably loud or excessive noise likely to disturb any reasonable person within the city." The bylaw explicitly bans loud noise between 10 pm and 7 am, and it requires applications for exemptions under "certain circumstances.".Yet the bylaw also contains a specific exemption for "the sounding of bells in churches, religious establishments, and schools." Church bells are grandfathered in because they are mechanical, stationary, and tied to structures that have existed for generations. They are not amplified through electronic horn speakers deliberately designed to broadcast across many city blocks.What the mosque installed is something entirely different. Horn speakers are not bells. They are directional amplification devices built for long-distance projection — the same technology used at sports stadiums, train stations, and emergency alert systems. The mosque's own advisory says these speakers were selected for outdoor coverage and audio quality. This is not about religious freedom. This is about noise infrastructure.If you think this stops at one mosque and one "test," it’s time to wake up. In 2020, cities across Canada — including Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver — granted temporary noise bylaw exemptions to mosques during Ramadan so they could broadcast the Adhan. What started as a pandemic-era exception is now being treated as a permanent entitlement. In Minneapolis, a 2023 city ordinance formally legalized mosque loudspeakers with expanded hours, prompting legal challenges under environmental noise statutes that recognize "quietude" as a protected natural resource. In Dearborn, Michigan — a city with one of the highest Muslim populations in the United States — residents filed formal noise complaints in 2025 after multiple mosques began broadcasting calls to prayer loud enough to be heard through closed windows. Some residents told reporters they were afraid to complain for fear of being labelled “Islamophobic.”.That is the playbook. Frame every objection as bigotry, and watch city councillors fold like cheap lawn chairs at a summer picnic. In Mississauga, Ontario, councillor Carolyn Parrish admitted that noise complaints about the 2020 Adhan broadcasts were "thinly veiled cover-ups" for anti-Muslim sentiment. Toronto city councillor Michael Thompson received what his office described as "exactly worded emails" from an organized group objecting to the principle of religious broadcasting, not the volume. The message was clear: oppose this, and you will be branded a “hater” or “Islamophobe.”But noise is not a theological issue. It is a bylaw issue. .In Saskatoon, just up the highway from Regina, church bells at Holy Spirit Catholic Church generated noise complaints in 2003 after neighbours measured levels as high as 92 decibels — loud enough to cause hearing damage, according to one resident. The church bells were exempt from Saskatoon's noise bylaw at the time, but the city considered lifting that exemption. The point is not that church bells are innocent. The point is that noise exemptions for religious institutions are already controversial, and adding amplified electronic broadcasts to the mix makes the problem worse, not better.The Regina City Jamia Masjid sits at 1910 McIntyre Street, in the heart of downtown. Within a two-block radius are the Cornwall Centre, Victoria Square Park, the Regina Public Library, and multiple residential and commercial buildings..The mosque's speakers are not pointed inward toward worshippers. They are mounted on all four exterior walls, aimed outward at the city. The Adhan is recited in Arabic and includes the declaration "Allahu akbar" — "God is greatest" — repeated multiple times. This is not a neutral sound. It is a theological statement, broadcast into public space on taxpayer-funded infrastructure, using equipment that would get any nightclub, bar, or concert venue shut down by bylaw enforcement.Regina city council has a choice. It can enforce Bylaw No. 6980 equally, which means treating mosque horn speakers the same way it would treat any other amplified outdoor sound system in a downtown commercial zone. Or it can carve out another religious exemption, watch every other faith group demand equal treatment, and turn downtown Regina into a competing soundscape of amplified calls, chants, and sermons.The mosque says it wants "greater understanding, dialogue, and appreciation." Fair enough. Here is some dialogue. Go buy a phone app. Send a text. Ring a bell inside your own building. The Adhan has functioned for 1,400 years without outdoor loudspeakers, and it can function for 1,400 more. What cannot continue is the steady erosion of noise bylaws under pressure from groups who equate religious accommodation with the right to project their theology into other people's neighbourhoods.Regina is not Riyadh. Saskatchewan is not Saudi Arabia. And Canadian noise bylaws were not written to be selectively suspended every time a religious group decides its traditions require electronic amplification. City hall needs to enforce the law — while it still has one worth enforcing.

OLDCORN: Regina is not Riyadh — time to enforce noise bylaws on mosque loudspeakers

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