There are two fundamental problems with Liberal MP Iqra Khalid’s Motion 103 calling on the federal government to battle Islamophobia that will likely come up for debate in the House of Commons this coming week.

One concern is practical, the other stems from a dusty old philosophical belief that words can affect ideas and concepts. Used incorrectly for long enough, the wrong words give us bad ideas.

M-103 is mostly politically correct gobbledygook – airy, ill-defined concepts that are hard to disagree with. Indeed, the motion is expected to pass nearly unanimously with all-party support.

Khalid’s motion calls on Ottawa to “condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.” Interestingly, though, while her motion claims, in a vague and general way, to be equally worried about virulent anti-Semitism or persecution of Christians, it mentions only Islamophobia by name.

It then calls on the federal government to combat hate and fear against Muslims, implement a government-wide approach to eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination (while again singling out only Islamophobia) and collect data on hate crimes across the country and report back in 240 days.

Of course, these goals have received widespread endorsement from social media warriors who are all in favour of fairness and justice, tolerance and inclusion, but who have an understanding of those concepts that is only 140-characters deep.

There are very real, practical problems with M-103.

For instance, who gets to define “Islamophobia?” Does that mean an irrational fear of all Muslims based on a very real fear of several thousand radicals who truly do want to harm Western democracy? Or does it mean the much broader, politically-correct concept of Islamophobia, namely that anyone questioning whether Islam is a religion of peace is guilty of Islamophobia?

This latter, catchall definition also makes offenders of those who doubt the superiority of Sharia law, argue that compelling Muslim women to wear burkas or even niqabs is contrary to Western values or draw or publish cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed.

While most Canadians might go for the former definition of Islamophobia, I guarantee you that once M-103 gets into the hands of the activists and human-rights extremists who populate the halls of the federal bureaucracy, it will be the latter, much broader definition that is enforced.

And since the point of M-103 is to single out Muslims for protection from speech they find offensive (the bits about discrimination against all religions are an afterthought, a tag-on), what comes out of the passage of M-103 will be a chill on public statements critical of Islam or Muslims – even of radical Muslims who wage violent jihad against Western civilians.

This will be worse than former-U.S. President Barack Obama’s refusal to say the words “radical Islam.” That was his own personal ban. It applied only to him and his administration.

If M-103 passes, it will amount to an official policy that no Canadian should utter the words “radical Islam.” Even if the policy is “shouldn’t” rather than “cannot” speak such phrases, it will have the effect of silencing most criticism of Islam – the well-informed criticism as well as the more visceral sort.

Philosophically, though, there is also the danger that the gobbledygook will actually change the way we think, at least at the upper levels in Canadian society. The great British philosopher A.J. Ayer postulated that just as ideas need words to describe them accurately, words used improperly can change the very concepts behind them.

So if we start calling things Islamophobic long enough, even those that aren’t phobic will become phobic in our collective minds.

If that happens, we will lose an understanding of who our society’s leading threats are.