I appreciate the opportunity to be on this committee and to participate in this study. I also want to commend Ms. Khalid. It just so happens that my colleagues here beside me all serve on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. Mr. Reid doesn't anymore, but he chaired that subcommittee for the better part of a decade. Ms. Khalid joins us and people who are dedicated to human rights, freedom, the rule of law, and certainly the fight against racism.
I want to begin my questions by saying that I'm glad we've had the ability to work together for the last couple of years. I believe that no matter how you may perceive my question, all your intentions have been good and for the betterment of all people.
At the expense of being the one who identifies the elephant in the room, I don't think it would be overreaching to say that everybody in this room agrees with the anti-racism aspect of M-103 and the defence of religious freedom aspect of M-103. The concern I highlighted in my speech, and I believe that Mr. Anderson did as well in the chamber, was in regard to the etymology of the term “Islamophobia” itself. I just wanted to know if you were concerned at all about this term. It's been around for a very short period of time. It hasn't really stood the test of any kind of academic rigour.
Are you concerned—and you've already heard from other colleagues, so it's not something new—that there's a large percentage of people in Canada who are concerned that their speech would be stifled if something like “Islamophobia” wasn't really defined? I'm wondering if you have any concerns in that regard, and I wonder what your definition of Islamophobia is.