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

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is typical of the Liberals. They will say one thing and do another. On Bill C-51, they said they were for it although they were against it, but they were actually going to vote against it. It is the same thing with this bill. They were against it although they were for some of the things in it, but they are going to vote with the government. That party cannot take a stand.

Now that they are trailing in the polls, Liberals are trying to adopt some of the very policies that the NDP has offered over the last four or five years. Canadians realize that this is too little, too late for the little party over in the corner.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech, because I think he really set the record straight.

If we are serious about wanting to tackle violence against women, we need to be wiser in our approach. The bill tackles some types of violence against women in ways that are not at all wise.

Many of the practices that have been denounced are already covered by the Criminal Code. In reality, this bill is meant to target and divide Canadians on an extremely serious issue: violence against women.

I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, violence against women and children is a very serious issue that we need to address nationally. We need to address it in discussions with the provinces, the cities, and the communities. It is not something we can ignore.

There are 1,200 missing and murdered indigenous women. We have been calling on the government to have an inquiry to find out what happened, yet it has refused to do that.

Twelve hundred women have gone missing or been murdered, but it is clear that the government has no agenda when it comes to protecting women and children. It is more interested in partisan politics and trying to score some cheap points to get re-elected. That is not going to happen. I can assure everyone that Canadians have seen the Conservatives work over the past years. They have failed to deliver. Men, women, and children have been victimized over and over, yet the government has failed to protect those very same individuals.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, an actual victim of early and forced marriage had this to say about the bill:

Forced into an abusive marriage at 17 and unable to leave it for 18 years, I can attest to the fact that a forced marriage is effectively a life of slavery. I congratulate the Canadian government for taking a bold step on behalf of women who have nowhere to turn for help.

This was said by Aruna Papp, a woman I had the great honour of meeting. She was a victim of this barbaric practice of forced marriage and commends this government for taking action. I am wondering if the hon. member opposite has a comment to make on Aruna Papp's statement.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we should always support victims of such heinous crimes as forced marriages.

The problem is that the bill does not address the very issues my hon. colleagues have talked about. The bill does not address very the issues that need to be addressed. Witnesses came forward, expert witnesses and stakeholders, who are part of the community and worked in the community, yet the Conservatives failed to accept even one amendment to this bill. Even the Canadian Bar Association called this bill basically useless.

We need some concrete plans to address situations like those my hon. colleague talked about. Conservatives have failed to deliver for people who are forced into marriages, and this bill is not the solution.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great indignation that I rise today to debate 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, which, I would remind the House, came from the Senate.

I refuse to use the short title the Conservatives gave this bill, which they have used repeatedly at multiple press conferences, as well as in quotations from many cabinet ministers, because, frankly, the short title is racist and discriminatory.

Ms. Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, in testimony to the status of women committee, stated:

lt is dehumanizing and degrading to label certain forms of violence as barbaric when all of it is so. Why are some politicians labelling some practices as barbaric and linking it with immigrants only?

Let us look at the intentions of Bill S-7: it makes polygamy grounds for inadmissibility to Canada; it sets the minimum age for marriage at 16; it restricts the defence of provocation to indictable offences; and it creates new offences and a recognizance to keep the peace related to forced or underage marriage.

I will show not only that Bill S-7 is largely unnecessary, but also that some of its provisions will have negative consequences for victims.

First, polygamy is prohibited under the Criminal Code and has been illegal in Canada since 1890. Polygamy is not a recognized form of marriage for people wishing to immigrate to Canada.

According to the Library of Parliament's legislative summary, there appear to be no statistics as to how often immigration—despite these prohibitions—is used to facilitate the reunion of polygamous families in Canada.

What is more, there is no empirical evidence on the extent to which immigrants from countries where polygamy is legal or culturally accepted have formed polygamous families in Canada.

Professor Rupaleem Bhuyan, from the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, adds that Bill S-7 could have negative consequences for the victims of polygamy and their family. He said:

I am most concerned with how this bill increases discretionary powers among immigration officers to deem inadmissible anyone who is perceived to be practising polygamy. The low burden of proof may lead to racist discrimination against immigrants from particular regions of the world who are considered undesirable. This provision would also put women who are spouses of polygamous men at risk of being deported or being separated from their children.

We need to recognize from the outset that forced marriage is a form of violence and that these types of marriages are wrong. The requirements of free and informed consent are already included in the Quebec Civil Code and common law.

The Canadian Criminal Code already provides adequate recourse in cases of forced marriage before and after the marriage, as well as in cases of travelling with a minor with the intention of forcing that minor to marry.

Bill S-7 adds nothing but provisions that could create many undesirable consequences, such as increased social pressure on the victims and added danger for the victims by isolating them and removing their ability to speak out for fear of reprisal.

Naila Butt, of the Social Services Network, summarized the situation this way, and I quote:

Criminalization of forced marriage, without the much needed institutional support for victims, would only further alienate and harm those facing forced marriage and gender-based violence, with the added insult of being stigmatized that they come from barbaric cultures.

Members of a responsible government must base their laws on evidence, which is not the case with this bill. They must first consult stakeholders, civil society, victims and victim advocacy groups. It is their duty to consult on the best way to approach a problem in order to find the right solution that will achieve the intended result. That is obviously not what happened here.

A bill must absolutely be useful and not have a negative impact on the victims, in other words, it must not make them more vulnerable and must not further victimize them, which is unfortunately not the case here. Bill S-7 is ill conceived and remarkably does not meet any of the criteria for good evidence-based legislation and the search for appropriate solutions to a problem. It speaks only to the Conservative government's ideology.

Even after it was studied in committee, Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration immediately declared that he would not consider any amendments to the bill. Even though the vast majority of witnesses expressed serious concerns about this legislation, no amendments were retained. One witness who appeared before this committee said that Bill S-7 was the wrong way to address these problems. I completely agree, and that is why I am vehemently opposed to this bill. I do, however, support the NDP's motion, which shows how a responsible New Democrat government would address violence against women. This motion also reflects the wishes of many agencies that work tirelessly to combat violence against women with very little support from the current government. The motion states:

That, in the opinion of the House, forced marriages are a crime that constitutes violence against women and consequently, the government should: (a) strongly condemn the practice; (b) increase funding to organizations working with potential or actual victims; (c) consult with women, communities, organizations, and experts to form a true picture of the issue and to identify the best ways to address it; (d) allow women with conditional permanent resident status to remain in Canada if their partners are deported due to polygamy or forced marriage; (e) invest in information programs tailored to immigrant women; (f) develop culturally appropriate training programs for service providers dealing with immigrant women such as the police and social workers, as well as officers of the Canada Border Service Agency and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration; (g) restore funding to Status of Women Canada; and (h) implement the NDP's national plan for a strategy to address violence against women.

That is how an NDP government would tackle the problem of violence against women. We will finally implement well-thought-out, long-term solutions in concert with the organizations that are working to eliminate this scourge.

[Paulina Ayala, NDP, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is one thing that strikes me. I have children, teenaged girls, and I think it is a terrible thing to force a girl to marry. That is often done because of a different culture and different vision of marriage. The victims then choose not to report their forced marriage, out of fear that their parents will be deported for facilitating it.

There is therefore a problem in this bill. We have to help these girls, but how can we educate the parents and change their way of thinking so that this kind of thing no longer happens? In Denmark, a similar bill was enacted and no crimes were reported. That means that the girls feel so guilty about accusing their parents that they do not report anything and they continue to live with the abuse.

Something was not done right there. I would like my colleague to talk about this in more detail. Yes, we have to put an end to forced marriages, but how can we help girls to speak up without being afraid that their families will be deported?

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments.

In fact, we do not need to keep reinventing the wheel. There are front-line workers who work with the groups in question and have already started to look for solutions. However, legislators are not listening to those groups. There has been no consultation.

As my colleague demonstrated so well, violence against women is often committed by intimate partners or family members. It is therefore very difficult to report them. There needs to be a support group in order to prevent this type of violence. We have to encourage intervention and prevention and designate a safe place where these people can take refuge and explain their situations, so that together, we can find well-thought-out solutions.

However, we have to invest in these organizations in order to help them. They are already working very closely with people who might become victims. We have to do prevention work in a conciliatory manner.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the previous question, when my colleague from the NDP asked if we would be forcing parents to be deported, et cetera. I want to clarify something on that.

There is a measure in this bill that where there are reasonable grounds to believe a person will specifically aid or participate in the forced or early marriage ceremony involving someone else, for example, a child, or will take a young person out of Canada for the purpose of a forced or early marriage ceremony abroad, that individual could be brought to the court and ordered to enter into a peace bond. That provision is there.

Therefore, to fearmonger, saying that the parents will be deported, is not the right approach.

Coming back to that, my colleague talked about some representation from Muslims Facing Tomorrow appearing before the status of women committee. Let me this share with her. On May 5, Raheel Raza from Muslims Facing Tomorrow said, in our immigration committee, of which I am a member:

The fact that the bill uses the word “barbaric” is extremely important because the abuse that is perpetuated against women under the banner of honour-based violence is nothing less than barbaric. Therefore, my organization totally supports the bill in its intent to eradicate barbaric practices.

I would like to hear from my colleague on that.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what the quotation says is that all violence against women is serious and barbaric. Nowhere does it say that we must target particular communities in the short title of a bill. That is totally racist and discriminatory.

All violence against women must be excluded from our modern societies; that is not the issue. It is the use of a title that targets communities and divides Canada that is problematic. We must absolutely address the issue of violence against women, whatever it may be.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill S-7, the zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act. Before I do that, I would like to inform the House that I will be splitting my time with the member for Mississauga South.

The amendments contained in Bill S-7 would improve protection and support for individuals at risk, especially women and girls, including in the following ways: establishing a new national minimum age for marriage at 16 years; codifying the existing legal requirement for free and enlightened consent for marriage; codifying the requirement of ending an existing marriage prior to entering a new one; criminalizing certain conduct related to underage and forced marriage ceremonies, including the act of removing the child from Canada for the purpose of such marriage ceremonies; creating specific preventive court ordered peace bond when there are grounds to fear that someone is at risk of underage or forced marriage; and ensuring that the defence of provocation would not apply in so-called honour killings and many spousal homicides.

In my speech today I would like to focus on the measures in Bill S-7, which would require a minimum age for marriage, free and informed consent to marry and dissolution of prior marriages before new marriages.

I will start by highlighting the fact that there is currently no national minimum age for marriage in Canada. We therefore need to modernize and clarify marriage legislation applicable across Canada.

This area of law is very confusing to many people because they assume that a minimum age for marriage already exists.

Setting the absolute minimum age for marriage is a matter of federal jurisdiction, however, there is currently only one piece of federal legislation with a minimum marriage age and it only applies in Quebec. The Federal Law—Civil Law Harmonization Act, No. 1, which reconciles Quebec's unique civil law at the provincial level with common law at the federal level, sets age 16 as the minimum age for marriage in Quebec.

For the other common law provinces, the case law is extremely old in this regard, which causes some confusion. In general, the common law is interpreted as age 14 for boys and age 12 for girls.

Setting a national minimum age of 16 years old for marriage would establish a consistent standard across the country and would make it clear that Canada would not permit underage marriage.

I would also like to clarify that the national absolute minimum age for marriage is a separate legal concept from the provincial jurisdiction to legislate on minimum age pertaining to the conditions of celebration of a marriage. Existing territorial and provincial marriage law will continue to contain protections for children between the new minimum age for marriage and the age of majority, usually set by the province or territory at age 18 or 19.

In the exceptional circumstances in which a child under the age of majority is mature enough to marry, these provincial and territorial laws currently require parental consent, and in some instances also the consent of a judge, to ensure that the child fully understands the legal consequences of marriage.

Bill S-7 also proposes to amend the Civil Marriage Act to codify the requirement of free and enlightened consent to marry and codifying the requirement for the dissolution of any previous marriage.

At the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, we had the opportunity to hear from numerous witnesses. Lawyer Kathryn Marshall explained why it was important that we codify the national minimum age. She told the committee that the common law was very open to interpretation and that our government was taking an important step by codifying the legal requirements. We also heard from a lot of witnesses.

The committee had the opportunity to listen to victims of such marriages, victims like Aruna Papp, whose name has already been mentioned in previous comments and speeches. She said:

I commend the government for its leadership in taking a stand on a very difficult issue and for defending the human rights of vulnerable women who are unable to speak for themselves. I'm thrilled to support this bill.

There are numerous others. We talked with lawyer Kathryn Marshall on April 23. She said:

With the passage of this bill, Canada will be joining other nations that have taken a strong stance against forced and child marriage by making it illegal. It is important this law include criminal consequences for people who organize, participate in, pressure, and facilitate child marriage and marriage without consent. It is often the pressure from family and community that is forcing these young women and girls to engage in these marriages.

I have been a member of the committee for some time. I mentioned the peace bond in my previous comment to a question asked by my colleague from the NDP. The legal requirement that any previous marriage must be dissolved prior to a new marriage would now apply nationally to all Canadian residents. Also, family members and others would be subject to prosecution where they actively and knowingly participate in a forced or early marriage ceremony by transporting unwilling or underage daughters to the ceremony or acting as a legal witness. A person who knowingly performs a forced marriage or early marriage ceremony, would also be subject to prosecution.

Our government is taking strong steps to ensure no young woman or girl is a victim of early or forced marriage. I heard a couple of previous speakers from the NDP. There was a lot of misinformation. I honestly wish that on sensitive issues like this, we would all work together, instead of making out that government bills are all part of the Conservative agenda, but even if it is part of the Conservative agenda, what is wrong with getting a good agenda out and helping Canadians?

I urge all my colleagues from all parties to please support the bill. Let us protect those who need protection.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his speech. I also want to clarify that, in fact, I support establishing the minimum age for marriage at 16, as well as criminal sanctions against those who perform a marriage ceremony in the case of early forced marriages.

To illustrate the problem I have with what the Conservative member just said, I will use the example of a 14-year-old girl who is the victim of a forced marriage. Under the Conservative bill, she would have to report her family, her father, her mother, her brothers and sisters. How can a 14-year-old girl be expected to do that, knowing that her entire family will be convicted? It makes no sense. That young girl would not be able to do that. What will happen, then? Forced marriages will happen in secret. If we are saying that forced marriages are illegal, let us make sure that those who perform those marriages are punished.

I would like to hear my colleague comment on the unfortunate consequences this bill will have for victims.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, our government's intention is to make sure that young people and children, women and girls in this case, are educated about there being clear laws and protections. There is no intention to separate the parents and the children here.

The zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act would send a very clear message to those coming to Canada that forced marriages, honour-based violence, or any other form of harm through cultural practices are unacceptable in Canada.

Let me share what another victim said at committee. Lee Marsh was a victim of underage forced marriage, so she has experience with this. I commend her bravery for coming out in public to share what she went through. On April 23, she said:

If I had known that what my mother was doing was against the law, I might have felt more able to say no. It would have given me an out to say, “But you can't do this. It's against the law.”

That is why it is very important that a law is in place, so that young people are aware of it and they can stand up and tell their own parents or other relatives that it is against the law and they should not do it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we are quite supportive of some things in the legislation. The member made reference to establishing the national minimum age at 16. However, here we are, 10 years later, and now the government has brought forward a piece of legislation to deal with this. I cannot help but reflect on other aspects that it would have been nice to see the government put a priority on. If this was such a priority, I am sure it could have been a priority four, five, or six years ago. It is only today that we are seeing the legislation being brought forward and the government is trying to push it through by using time allocation.

Would the member not agree that there are many other issues within immigration? Especially if we want to relate it to marriages, imagine a federal government that continues to keep families apart because of its ever growing delays overseas when it comes to immigration.

I wonder if the member might want to provide some comment with regard to that as a priority versus this.

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to start. The 13 dark lost years of the Liberal regime created a mess in immigration. There were backlogs.

Of course, there is plenty of legislation that is very important. We have to deal with all of it, and we are still dealing with it, and we intend to deal with a lot more.

In those 13 years, as I said, immigration was made so messy that there was a backlog of more than 800,000 people.

When my colleague talks about family reunification, I would ask him to do some research. This is the government that broke the record of the last 50 years to bring the maximum number of immigrants in one year. This is the government that introduced the super visa for parents and grandparents. This visa is issued for 10 years to parents and grandparents and they can stay here for longer periods. They can come and go back, and come and go back.

That is what the government has done. I agree with the member that there is a lot of work to be done, and a lot more will be done.