Article content We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or VEZINA: Be cautious about vague definitions of 'terrorism' Back to video In fairness, these terms are difficult to define and lawmakers have been inconsistent at best in explaining what terrorism means. If one is not careful, virtually any act of violence which can result in significant harm to civilians in the service of any form of ideology can be described as terrorism. In the world of academia, there is a broad and often ambiguous debate about what constitutes an ideology. That is how violent the acts committed in the name of that ideology have to be and how much harm has to occur for the act to be defined as terrorism.