As the minister mentioned, these are certainly issues that are fairly clandestine and difficult to identify. In terms of hard data, there's no actual category for forced or underage marriage at this point in time, and therefore there's no reliable statistical data in this regard. However, one of the most relied-upon sources is the study by SALCO, the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, which identified 219 cases in Ontario between 2010 and 2012.
The Department of Justice has also been looking at this issue for a number of years and funded two anecdotal studies on forced marriage in Canada to gauge the scope of the issue. The first was by Naïma Bendriss, in association with Rights and Democracy. It dates from 2008. It examined the incidence of forced marriage in Montreal and Toronto through interviews with service providers. The study did confirm the existence of forced marriages in Canada and that many women were unaware of their rights. It did identify the link between forced marriage, honour-related violence, and polygamy.
The second study was by Dr. Zohra Husaini—