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Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Friday he would have his officials review use of words like Sikh, Sunni and Shia to describe terrorist threats, after a report suggesting Canada was again at risk from Sikh extremism sparked fierce criticism.

His promise seemed to do little to calm the anger, however, as the Sikh community’s main national organization called afterward for all 20 MPs and one senator of the religion to resign over the issue.

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Some of the outcry erupted from within Goodale’s own caucus, as a Liberal backbencher urged that the mention of potential Sikh violence be removed entirely from the Public Safety Canada terror-threat report.

The minister stopped short of agreeing to do that, though suggested some of the report’s language may need tweaking. Government officials did not mean to impugn Sikhs or any other religious or ethnic group, he said.

“But words matter and being precise matters,” Goodale said after a speech in Toronto. “So I have invited my officials and the others they work with right across Canada to examine the descriptors that are used in relation to terrorism and extremism and violence to make sure those descriptors are appropriate and proper.