A rural Manitoba newspaper editor says he believes religious intolerance may have played a role in Access Credit Union's failed bid to merge with Assiniboine Credit Union earlier this month.

Access members voted on Sept. 16 against the merger, which would have made the combined entity the largest credit union in Manitoba and the sixth-largest in Canada.

Of the 4,496 eligible Access members who cast votes, only 38.2 per cent were in favour of the proposed merger. A two-thirds majority vote was needed for the amalgamation to go ahead.

Before voting, members discussed the merger at simultaneous meetings that were connected via video link between Altona, Carman, Grunthal, Morden, Morris, Oak Bluff, Vita and Winkler.

Greg Vandermeulen, group editor of the Winkler Times and associated papers, said he attended the meeting in Winkler and heard sound financial arguments for and against the merger — as well as something that disturbed him.

"Somebody at a different location came to the microphone and offered his view that he would vote against the merger because Assiniboine Credit Union offers something called an Islamic mortgage," he told Janet Stewart of CBC's Radio Noon program on Thursday.

"The reaction in Winkler was applause from probably three-quarters of the crowd, which both surprised and somewhat disgusted me."

Vandermeulen was so shocked that he wrote an editorial, titled "Sickened by 'Christian' opposition," that was published this week.

"The community is mostly Mennonite — strong faith background, strong Christian background. One would think they would be most willing to consider religious accommodation as something that's important," he said.

"To stand up and say, 'We believe in religious accommodation only when it applies to ourselves and not to others' struck me as very hypocritical and saddening."

What are Islamic mortgages?

Islam's legal code, known as Shariah law, states that paying interest on money is considered unacceptable by the Qur'an.

Assiniboine Credit Union started offering Islamic mortgages in 2010, becoming the first major financial institution in Canada to offer mortgages geared toward the needs of devout Muslims.

Under an Islamic mortgage, a Muslim homeowner and the credit union agree to co-own the home as financial partners. The homeowner then buys back the credit union's share, plus a small profit, over an agreed-upon period of time.

Vandermeulen said he was sickened to see people express ignorance about Islamic mortgages and Shariah law.

"It's a misleading term in the sense that most people's understanding of Shariah law, it comes from media, [and] they think of things like honour killings," he said.

"They don't realize it's a term that actually applies to the entire faith for Islam."

Vandermeulen said it's difficult to say how much the opposition to Islamic mortgages influenced Access Credit Union members' decisions, as many who voted against the merger did so based on multiple reasons.

"Some who shared that viewpoint may have voted no anyway, and there [were] a lot of financial reasons to vote no.... In fact, that's one of the criticisms of the editorial, is a lot of people are saying, 'But that's not even why people even voted no,'" he said.

"There was a disturbing amount of people who believed that. How many 'no' votes that influenced, I have no idea."

No religious accommodation?

In his editorial, Vandermeulen suggested in "a rather tongue-in-cheek" way that maybe Access members really want the credit union to stop any form of religious accommodation.

"Maybe that means getting rid of the Christmas trees. Maybe that means opening Sundays, religious holidays. Maybe that's the message they're actually sending [to] Access Credit Union," he said.

"I know full well that's not the message they're sending, but I wanted people to think about it in those terms — to flip it around and see what they would feel like."

The Sept. 16 vote marked the second time Access Credit Union members had rejected a proposal to join forces with Assiniboine Credit Union.

A similar vote was voted down in April, with at least one member in Winkler saying he did not approve of Assiniboine's support of the LGBT community because it runs against his Christian beliefs.

Vandermeulen stressed that those who express intolerance do not reflect the majority of Winkler residents, and he's received a lot of public support for his editorial.

At the same time, he said some people told him he should've left the issue alone.

"They'd rather I didn't even stir the pot, as they like to say," he said.

"It's not an indictment on Christianity, it's not an indictment on the community," he added. "It's an indictment on those people and those attitudes that are still found in our community."