Foreign Affairs committee  Sorry, I missed the last—

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, language is very important. Again, I don't mean to deliver bad news, but language is really important and I think perceptions are really important, but in a sense, I think it's a little too late now. I think the language is important if we're going to try to cultivate, as w

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll just add something briefly about Lebanon. The official statistic now is that a fourth of the population in Lebanon is Syrian refugees, and that's considered a modest number. I think that Lebanon is a very good example of a country that could be significantly affected by the

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. Because, of course, we have to consider that post-Arab uprisings elected leaders in most countries—maybe Jordan and Tunisia now being the exceptions—who have less credibility than they had before, rather than parliamentarians, we're seeing the emerge

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm sorry to be the messenger of bad news, but I think that maybe we need to be asking a slightly different question, which is not how can we force them to separate church from state. Before I answer the question, I just want to note that, in a sense, with regard to a lot of wh

Foreign Affairs committee  —for Muslims living in the west to be educated—if we're going to talk about education—by scholars who are Canadians or Americans, not people who come from Pakistan, Iraq, or Syria.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. It's a very important one. If you look at polling data, I think the most reliable polling that's done in the United States is being conducted by the Pew Forum. They've done very interesting polling data on how Muslims in the Arab world feel about ap

Foreign Affairs committee  The last point I'd like to make is really about dislocation, which is one of the topics I know you're interested in. I'm just going to throw out a few figures for you. In Iraq the pre-2003 Christian population was as high as 1.5 million or 5% of the Iraqi population, and now it's

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Good morning to everyone. It's an honour to speak before you this morning. I'm going to focus on the role of religion in ISIS activities. The reason I think this is so important is that there is some reluctance, particularly among western governments, acade