As expected, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid’s anti-Islamophobia motion passed the House of Commons with a hearty majority.

The Thursday afternoon vote tally saw 201 votes for and 91 against. All Liberal MPs present voted in favour, although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was absent. The only Conservative MPs who voted for it were Bruce Stanton and leadership candidate Michael Chong.

An interesting spanner was thrown into the works with the release of an Angus Reid Institute survey that morning. It asked Canadians how they’d vote if they were MPs. A plurality of 42% said they’d vote against it. While only 29% would give it the go ahead.

The rest opted for “don’t know / abstain.”

So while MPs voted for it overwhelmingly, the people they represent said they’d take a pass. Interestingly, 45% of respondents did say anti-Muslim attitudes and discrimination were “a serious problem” while 55% believed the issue was “overblown” by the political and media establishment.

But the vote happened and now we can put this all behind us, right? Wrong. If anything, the quest to tackle Islamophobia has only just begun.

The predominant mainstream narrative used to knock down concerns about M-103 was that “it’s just a toothless motion!” This isn’t true.

Sure, it’s not an actual bill that proposes, say, endorsing sharia law, as some of its less circumspect critics allege. But it does call for a heritage committee study to look at the issue and then report back with a recommendations that could be used to create legislation within 240 days. The clock is now ticking.

What does this mean? How will the process unfold? The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is made up of 10 people, six of whom are Liberals. There is a Liberal chair, Hedy Fry, and then there is one Conservative and one NDP deputy chair.

The challenge is the committee already has a full plate. They’re behind on releasing a report on the media as it pertains to local communities, they’ve been looking into women in sports and they’ve just turned their focus to the state of Canadian museums.

For what it’s worth, Fry’s office tells me she’s eager to get to work on this new subject.

But when it eventually happens how it will go down is that together members will determine the scope of the study and how many witnesses to invite.

They could, if they chose, decide to downplay the Islamophobia aspect and instead focus more on broader issues of racism. After all, Liberal MPs have repeatedly made the point that this is actually about all forms of racism and discrimination. It’s not exclusively about Islamophobia.

Then they could also over-represent the Islamophobia angle. After all, Khalid’s motion was partly inspired by an e-petition posted on the government’s website that was exclusively about Islamophobia.

E-411, which garnered 70,000 signatures, stated that Islamist terrorists “do not reflect in any way the values or the teachings of the religion of Islam” and that “they misrepresent the religion”.

If this is the line of inquiry to be explored, the committee will have its work cut out for it. First, they’ll have to define that nebulous phrase Islamophobia, which is used to silence critics of Islam in a number of countries in the world.

Then they’ll also have to wade through the never-ending conversation about the relationship between Islam, its more radical sects and their interplay with terrorism.

Good luck with that.

Something tells me this is going to be one of the most watched series of committee hearings in years.

afurey@postmedia.com