Justice committee  Thank you very much for that important question. The point I would make on this is that we often talk about academic freedom and freedom of expression as being in balance with the need for respect and for preventing discrimination, but I think it's also important to see how much these complement each other.

Justice committee  Through you, Madam Chair, I appreciate the question. There's no question there's a huge amount of work here to do. I do want to address your point about any kind of gap between what you're hearing from me and what students have said, because that's certainly unintentional. My message to the students who have appeared here is, “We hear you, and we understand that the experiences you've had are very real and that we have a lot of work to do to address this situation and improve things.”

Justice committee  I agree. We have a special and particular responsibility in our society to be a place where respectful, open dialogue occurs. Picking up on some of what Mr. Sandler said, perhaps in a different context, we're seeing universities' ability to do that challenged, and we need to up our game.

Justice committee  It's an excellent suggestion. What we have is a very good picture of the general situation that existed in Canada. Your point is one that I think has been under-discussed, which is that this country was saturated in anti-Semitism right up until the 1960s. One of the contributions that universities had to make first was confronting their own anti-Semitism, which was deep and severe, but also opening the doors to scholars like Irving Abella, who helped document that anti-Semitism and its causes.

Justice committee  First, it's very clear that being able to define anti-Semitism is critical to being able to identify and address it. We've heard very clearly from Jewish leaders, students and faculty that our universities need to have the tools to clearly define and identify anti-Semitism, so we can be more effective in addressing it.

Justice committee  Let's let Mr. Sandler answer that.

Justice committee  Through you, Madam Chair, thank you for the question. These are two points that have been raised with us in all of our discussions with Jewish students and leaders. On the first point, we helped collect answers to a question in a letter from MPs sent to 27 universities that asked this very question.

Justice committee  Let me be clear. I think those policies.... We will be working with our members to make sure we are explicitly not just documenting what needs to be the case in policy but also communicating it so that Jewish students and faculty know these systems are there for them, and that they can access them to protect themselves and feel secure on their campus.

Justice committee  I want to start by echoing your message that the kind of language and behaviour you're describing is absolutely intolerable and offensive and needs to be eradicated. We need to work much harder to protect—

Justice committee  I would be happy to follow up with the committee with specific examples. I know universities are working with their codes of conduct. What they've heard from Jewish students and faculty is that these codes of conduct need to be applied more equally so that they protect all members of the community, and there's certainly more work to do there.

Justice committee  Through you, Madam Chair, thank you very much for the question. To start, I think it's important to say that what we've been hearing in our conversations with Jewish students and leaders in the past several weeks is how important it is that these codes of conduct be enforced in a way that's equal to all groups and provides protection to all groups, including, of course, members of our Jewish community.

Justice committee  Good morning, Madam Chair and honourable members of the committee. My name is Gabriel Miller, and I am the president and CEO of Universities Canada. As an organization, we are the federal and international voice of Canadian universities. Though it's only been two months since I joined Universities Canada, I can be certain that there will never be another issue more important than the one we're here to discuss today.