Bill S-7 (Historical)

Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act

An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Civil Marriage Act and the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Part 1 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to specify that a permanent resident or foreign national is inadmissible on grounds of practising polygamy in Canada.
Part 2 amends the Civil Marriage Act to provide for the legal requirements for a free and enlightened consent to marriage and for any previous marriage to be dissolved or declared null before a new marriage is contracted. Those requirements are currently provided for in the Federal Law—Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1 only in respect of Quebec and under the common law in the other provinces. It also amends the Civil Marriage Act to provide for the requirement of a minimum age of 16 years for marriage. This requirement is currently provided for in the Federal Law—Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1 only in respect of Quebec.
Part 3 amends the Criminal Code to
(a) clarify that it is an offence for an officiant to knowingly solemnize a marriage in contravention of federal law;
(b) provide that it is an offence to celebrate, aid or participate in a marriage rite or ceremony knowing that one of the persons being married is doing so against their will or is under the age of 16 years;
(c) provide that it is an offence to remove a child from Canada with the intention that an act be committed outside Canada that, if it were committed in Canada, would constitute the offence of celebrating, aiding or participating in a marriage rite or ceremony knowing that the child is doing so against their will or is under the age of 16 years;
(d) provide that a judge may order a person to enter into a recognizance with conditions to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for the purpose of preventing the person from committing an offence relating to the marriage of a person against their will or the marriage of a person under the age of 16 years or relating to the removal of a child from Canada with the intention of committing an act that, if it were committed in Canada, would be such an offence; and
(e) provide that the defence of provocation is restricted to circumstances in which the victim engaged in conduct that would constitute an indictable offence under the Criminal Code that is punishable by five years or more in prison.
Finally, the enactment also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

The NDP has no problem with the peace bond aspect or the order to keep the peace, if I am not mistaken. As I said earlier, the NDP would be prepared to support a number of aspects of this bill. That is why the NDP asked to remove four clauses at report stage. If that had been done we would have supported the bill. The peace bond aspect was not one of the four clauses we wanted to remove from the bill.

However, the member who just asked me a question was at every meeting. He heard one expert after another share their concerns about the bill. It is sad that he did not listen to them. He had the power in committee to make amendments to address the concerns raised by the experts, but he did nothing. Not only did he reject the NDP's amendments, but he also did not propose any amendments himself. It is as though he refused to listen to the experts who appeared before the committee. I think that is shameful.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her excellent work on this bill. Clearly, it is a very divisive bill and one that is hard to understand. It contains several harmful measures, and while it also contains some useful and interesting things, some problems must be corrected. In Canada, violence against women, especially racialized women, is a serious problem.

The hon. member did not have enough time to speak because there are many inadequate elements in this bill. She did a great job of explaining the bill's shortcomings and our reasons for opposing it.

I would like to give her an opportunity to describe where the NDP wants to make changes that would give more power and more services to women in these situations.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I respond to the question from the hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, I want to say what an exceptional member of Parliament she is. She has been working for years to improve the status of women. She is the chair of the NDP women's caucus and a dedicated advocate for change. We must take our hats off to her. She also worked hard to create a national plan for a strategy to address violence against women. She has worked with me on Bill S-7 to propose constructive amendments to the government.

We must consider the intent of Bill S-7. If the intent of this bill is to protect women, we must ensure that these women have access to better services and that they are aware of their rights. Also, they must be empowered to act. This kind of bill does not give them a choice. We are taking away their power. We must ensure that they take power into their own hands. In order to have this power, they must know their rights. In addition, there must be people who support women in choosing their own paths. These are extremely important elements.

I would like to remind the House that, according to Dr. Lamboley, the criminalization set in motion by Bill S-7 is dangerous if not accompanied by better support and information services regarding victims' rights. We must remember that. Bill S-7 has good intentions, but they are superficial if they are not accompanied by real measures to really help women.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, it is very rich to hear the member opposite comment about the activities of the committee. She was at most, if not all, of the meetings. When it comes to hearing the NDP speak about protecting women and protecting Canadian citizens in general, I will refer to the record of the member opposite and her party. They voted against the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act. They voted against the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act. They voted against the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act. Now they are going to vote against the zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act. We always hear this partisan rhetoric and attacks.

We heard from a number of witnesses at committee who clearly support this legislation, particularly victims. We on this side of the House listen to the actual victims.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Take off the clown nose.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, members opposite cannot keep quiet when somebody else is speaking because that is the NDP way. When we throw the truth at them, they cannot answer and instead start yelling and hollering left, right and centre.

The fact of the matter is that victims spoke loudly and clearly. One lady had to have her jaw reconstructed. After many years of abuse in a marriage, she had the courage to stand up and speak out. Those are the people the Conservative government listens to. Unfortunately, the NDP have deaf ears when it comes to listening to the actual victims.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member got a little carried away, but he did say two things I would like to comment on. First, he said that we voted against such and such a bill. It was that colleague himself who refused to vote in favour of a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women. He voted against a strategy to put an end to violence against women. I will not be lectured by him.

In terms of listening to victims, he is correct. I was in those committee meetings and I heard the victims. He will recall that these courageous victims told the committee that they supported the intent of the bill. I asked one of those victims if she supported Bill S-7, and she said yes. When I asked her what specific parts of Bill S-7 would help women, she said that she could not answer my question because she did not know the details of the bill but that she supported the bill's intent to help victims and that more should be done.

In short, I heard victims tell us that more must be done but they were not familiar with the details of the bill. I also listened to the experts, which my hon. colleague did not.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Civil Marriage Act and the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the third time and passed.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill. The Liberal Party will be voting in favour of it. We have some problems with it, which I will describe, but on balance, we believe that the positive features of the bill are more important than the negative ones and that is why we will support it.

Our biggest problem is with the short title, “zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act”. We moved an amendment to remove the word “cultural” and the government refused. The contents of the bill are not affected by the title, so this is not sufficient for us to vote against the contents, but we are strongly of the view that the word “cultural” is inappropriate.

Part of the reason is that if we look at the commission of such acts of polygamy, forced marriage, things that we all oppose, these are not limited to a single culture. There is the Christian group out in British Columbia in the news, the Jewish group in Quebec, and Muslim groups as well. It is all over the map. It is also of different cultures. When one inserts the word “cultural” into the bill, it creates unnecessary offence felt by certain communities.

The essence of our argument is that the use of the word “cultural” does not do anything at all to affect the content of the bill. It is not really doing anything good, but it is certainly doing something bad as it is causing unnecessary offence to communities that, rightly or wrongly, feel that the government is singling them out. For that reason, there is something to be gained and nothing to be lost by removing that word.

I have heard the minister on more than one occasion give some convoluted defence of the idea of why “cultural” should be in there. I have never understood his argument and I still do not. My argument is a very simple one. If the word does not do any good, but it does harm in offending communities, then it should be removed.

It is particularly the Muslim community that has taken offence to this. People in the Muslim community feel that they are being targeted. I think it is fair to say as a serious understatement that the government has not exactly reached out to the Muslim community in a positive way, so it is perhaps not surprising that they feel offended.

I remember that within days of 9/11, then prime minister Jean Chrétien went to a mosque to underline his support and the government's support for the Muslim community. Again, to put it very mildly, the leaders of the Conservative government have done nothing remotely resembling that, and instead, they include this word which is offensive to a major Canadian community. The fact that they are unwilling to remove that word simply adds to a long list of things that they have already done which have proved offensive to that particular community.

For all of those reasons, we are strongly opposed to the inclusion of the word “cultural”, but we do think the contents of the bill are such as to deserve support notwithstanding its bad short title. I will mention briefly what the positive features are.

First, the law now prescribes a minimum age for marriage. We think it is positive and good to have a minimum age for marriage across the country. That is a significant contribution of this bill, which goes beyond the distastefulness of the title. That is the first reason we support the bill.

The second thing that we like about this bill is that it would criminalize participation in forced marriages. I think everyone in the chamber is opposed to forced marriages, so it is good that we would make it a criminal offence to participate in such a marriage. That is another thing that the bill would do which we in the Liberal Party support.

It has been argued by the NDP and others that there should be an exemption for young people in this provision of criminalizing participation in forced marriages. My answer to that is that our justice system is flexible. Prosecutors have a lot of flexibility in whether they prosecute somebody or they do not.

There are some cases where, for example, if a 17-year-old brother has participated actively in the forced marriage of his younger sister, it might be appropriate for that person to be charged. Whereas in many cases, the individual young people will be innocent bystanders, not knowing what is going on or for whatever reason do not deserve to be prosecuted.

Our system is flexible enough. The prosecutors have been around for a while. They would not want to go after people in a way that was inappropriate. Preserving some flexibility in the administration of justice may be a positive thing to do.

We will therefore vote in favour of this bill because we agree with some of its measures, such as establishing a minimum age of marriage and criminalizing participation in a forced marriage. For those reasons, despite the bill's title, which we do not like, we will support this bill.

There are a couple of other areas where we are less than totally satisfied with the bill. One of those is the provisions regarding inadmissibility for those practising polygamy. It might be helpful if we had a definition of what polygamy is, because I know there are different definitions. When one gives immigration officers substantial power to bar someone from entering Canada, or even conceivably to expel somebody from Canada, it is a good idea to have a precise definition of the action for which that person will be barred or expelled.

I understand this is an issue of some debate in the legal community. I do not think there is a general consensus on what the definition ought to be. Therefore, it is a problem.

I would think that if we are to give immigration officers significant powers to remove people or bar people from entering our country, it would be a good idea to define more clearly what the offence is for which they can take these actions.

Finally, there was some confusion on the definition of the defence of provocation. I seem to recall the minister did not really know what it was in committee and had to be corrected by his officials. There is room for improvement in that area.

I do have objections to the bill and positive points about the bill, but primarily for the two reasons I gave, the definition of age of marriage and the criminalization of participation in forced marriages, the Liberal Party will vote in favour of the bill.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his and his party's support for the legislation.

Once again, the member made reference to the exception that he and his party were taking to the use of the word “cultural”. The fact is that in some families, and I need to point that it is not specific to one culture because it is many cultures that this can happen in, it is a tradition to force marriage on their children.

I know of one family in one particular community, and this was 25 years ago, that took its teenage daughters out of high school because it had found husbands for the daughters. They were two years apart. This took place over a two-year period. The girls were left with no high school education and were not happy with the fact that their parents were doing this. It was one of those stigma situations. They did not want to go against their parents or their family.

These kinds of practices that are rooted in culture in some families are not conducive with Canadian values. Could the member perhaps rethink the way he is interpreting the word “cultural” in the title of the bill?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his reasonably positive comments at the start, but he has not really addressed my point at all. He has just acknowledged that there are all sorts of different, what he calls cultures, or we could call them communities, groups or whatever word we want to use, in Canada that do these practices.

To give one example is fine, but we all agree that this is a bad practice, so that is not at all the point. However, he has not given any reason for using the word “cultural”. He just said, “All people, all cultures, all communities do it”. Therefore, why put the word “cultural” in the bill when it offends a particular community and does nothing to achieve the objectives of the bill. He has not addressed my question at all, so we remain opposed to the title.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his remarks.

I believe my colleague who spoke before him expressed the scope of the issue and all the finesse required to address these issues. Concern about the protection of these women's rights is shared by both sides of this House.

My colleague pointed out that the member opposite tried to evade a question. I would like to say that it appears as though the government has decided to make this bill law without listening to anyone. No amendments were considered and no comments by witnesses were heard or, I should say, listened to because there were no changes or amendments.

If the section on polygamy is such a concern for people, how does he explain the fact that his party did not present any amendments on this matter, which is nearly as startling as the title?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

We did propose amendments and it is true that the government did not accept any amendments. The situation is even worse than he suggested. The government not only failed to accept any amendments and listen to witnesses, but it also excluded from its report any evidence presented by the witnesses that it did not like.

As the leader of the Liberal Party said earlier today, Ottawa is broken, and the problem the member has raised about the committee system that does not work is a good example.

I agree with him on that. However, all the bills the Conservatives have introduced pose the same problem, and all we can do is vote for or against them, each time. If we vote against a bill simply because the committee system does not work, that would mean automatically voting against every bill.

Thus we must consider the details of the bill. In this case, as I explained, we will be voting in favour.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the nonsense in the question from the member of the NDP, this is what we did at committee. The member would do well to listen and perhaps take note so he does not make similar mistakes again in the future.

We listened to victims. Victim after victim who came before the committee told us of the damaging and lasting effects on their lives of having been forced into a marriage, into a life of abuse, victims who had the courage to stand up and make a difference in their lives, some after decades of having been subjected to nothing but abuse. They had the courage to get out of that and to come and speak in favour of the legislation and of the key components of it, including the title of the legislation. Those are the people to whom we listened.

As we know, in committees the opposition likes to parade in its set of witnesses, and we heard nothing new. Certainly we did not hear anything from the members of the NDP on the committee and we heard nothing of the impact on victims themselves.

The member of the Liberal Party spoke about something his leader announced today was broken. Certainly the Liberal Party knows a lot about being broken. Without being too sarcastic about their situation, the Liberals have to try to change the channel somehow because Canadians have seen right through that party and their rhetoric.

However, I would like to hear from the hon. member what impact the victims who spoke at the committee had on him personally.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, like the member opposite, I am not necessarily a huge fan of the NDP, but I still object to his patronizing tone in referring to the question from the NDP. I thought it was a perfectly reasonable question.

What is broken is not the NDP's question but the committee system under the government, of which the Conservatives should be ashamed.

I was in Parliament when we had committees under Liberal governments, and a lot of the members on committees who objected most to government policies were members of the government party. Now we have a system of trained seals where the parliamentary secretary tells everybody what to do, and his little assistant tells him what to do. There is no independent voice on the committee to the point where the Conservatives wipe out testimony they do not like, and none of the members have any independent voice whatsoever.

This is one of the things my leader is addressing. We will, for example, make parliamentary secretaries ineligible to sit on committees. Therefore, that gentleman not only would not be there to boss everybody around, and himself be bossed around by a guy or girl from the PMO, but he would not even be there.

The way committees are supposed to work is that they are to be committees of Parliament, and not run by the executive branch of government.