Canadian Heritage committee  I'll just say something on this racism versus religious discrimination piece, because I think that we can't generalize for all religions. For Muslims, and when talking about Islamophobia, it really is the intersection of religious discrimination and racism, whereas that might n

Canadian Heritage committee  Right. Those are two very different questions. Our society permits me, if I wanted to, to take the position and to articulate the position that those two are Islamophobes—if I wanted to, and I don't necessarily. There are people who've done that. I met Christopher Hitchens. He

Canadian Heritage committee  If somebody was trying to convert me to their faith, would I consider that Islamophobic? If they were telling me that what I believe is not true....

Canadian Heritage committee  Right.

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't see how that's in any way Islamophobic.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for your questions.

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Canadian Heritage committee  I engage in critical discourse about Islam all the time. That's part of my religion. It's part of my existence. Critiquing Islam is not the problem. Hating Islam is the problem.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a question of jurisdiction, actually. For example, section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which would have permitted incursions on speech where that speech was hateful, was repealed in 2015 as a result of political pressure. That was as a result of many Canadians getti

Canadian Heritage committee  Of course.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's an interesting distinction, because I think the distinction between Islam and Muslims is a factual distinction, but I think it has also become a political distinction, used at times for motives that I would characterize as hateful or discriminatory. One can set up the thing

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, I certainly don't think that studying Islamophobia poses any greater threat of state interference in speech than studying any other forms of discrimination. We already have laws that curtail speech—namely, hate speech laws, libel laws. Nothing about studying Islamophobia an

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here with my colleague, Yavar Hameed, and we represent the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association. The CMLA is an organization made up of self-identified Muslim Canadian lawyers coming from a diversity of backgrounds and a variety of professional experti