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The latest flashpoint in Quebec’s debate on accommodating religious minorities will play out in Outremont on Sunday.

Citizens will vote in a referendum on whether to overturn a bylaw banning places of worship on Bernard Ave., a busy and colourful street in the borough.

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The law forbids all new temples of any denomination from opening on the mixed commercial and residential strip but no one in the area has any illusions that the main group targeted is the borough’s growing Hasidic Jewish community.

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck,” said Alex Werzberger, a spokesman for Outremont’s Hasidic Jews. “They don’t want us here. They are hoping to squeeze us out.”

Outremont councillor Céline Forget, who is spearheading the campaign to ban new temples on the avenue, said in an email that Werzberger’s comments are part of the “Jewish lobby trying to attract the attention of journalists.”