Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 23rd, 2015

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

In your testimony, you talked about the changes that were made in October 2012 and the impact they are having on spouses not being able to get permanent residency when they land with a conditional status. What sort of impact does it have when there's an abusive situation?

[Rupaleem Bhuyan]

I should note that before 2012 there was an ongoing problem of what's called, in Canada, sponsorship breakdown. I think this term is a little too neutral for me. It's when someone is in an abusive situation with their sponsor and they are awaiting the regularization of their status—for example, an inland application for permanent residence; that's an ongoing problem. The conditional two-year permanent residence extends that period of time in which someone has to remain in a conjugal relationship.

We are currently conducting research on this in Alberta and Ontario. Although it is at this point preliminary, I've known of several cases of people coming forward where women who are in shelter or who are seeking advice about the abuse in their relationship are fearful. The evidentiary requirements are very vague. The information that CIC officers have is very uneven. Some people call CIC and do not get accurate information. Sometimes investigations are happening where the spouse of the potential victim of abuse is investigated as well as other family members, and sometimes those cases are deemed not abusive enough to warrant the exception. I think this is a very dangerous practice.

So if we look at the implementation of how the exception is being carried out, I think there are a lot of areas to pay attention to. I do think that, overall, conditional permanent residence creates an unfair and dangerous legal tie where a spouse has control over their spouse. I did similar research in the United States when they passed the immigration marriage fraud amendment in 1986. I believe concerns in the United States have also created and pushed for legal remedies for what they call, in U.S. law, the “battered immigrant”. If Canada is going to keep with this conditional permanent residence, which I think is a wrong idea, I would like to see Canada consider better options for victims of abuse to seek safety without the cooperation of their abuser.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you.

Mr. McCallum, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to the witnesses, particularly to you, Ms. Marsh, for having the courage to tell your story to Canadians.

Professor Bhuyan, you talked about the conditional permanent residence. I might just mention that, as you may know, this committee studied the issue some months ago. The great majority of participants, including the witnesses who came here, and the members, agreed that conditional permanent residence was a bad thing because of the potential for abuse of women that it entailed. Sadly, the only ones who disagreed with that, who supported the concept, were the government members who controlled the outcome. But you're not alone at all in putting forward this point of view.

I would like to return to an issue I raised but ran out of time on at the last session. That's this question of deporting people for polygamy when it would appear that there is no legal definition of what polygamy is in Canada. Particularly, since less proof is required than in a court in order to deport somebody, it seems to me that with no definition there is the potential for unfair deportations.

Do you think this issue could be addressed by providing some definition of what polygamy is in the bill? It would not necessarily be for application in general in this country, but at least for application to the case of potential deportations it would provide a little bit of clarity to potential offenders as to what it is they're not supposed to do.

[Rupaleem Bhuyan]

Thank you for the question. I'm aware of the report that the committee made as well on violence against women.

I'm not necessarily in a position to offer a definition of polygamy. I think that would require some collective study, so I'll refrain from going in that direction. I do believe, however, that deeming someone inadmissible is a very powerful mechanism that the Canadian government has. It has implications not only for that individual but for their family members. Family members of the person deemed inadmissible will also be barred from entering Canada or remaining in Canada.

I think we need to look at the intent of the law. Polygamy is already against the law in Canada. While there have not been any successful cases to hold people accountable, there is already a general public opinion. Although certainly some communities may be practising polygamy and using their values to justify it, I don't think there is a need to make a statement that polygamy is wrong in Canada. Deeming groups inadmissible for entering Canada is not necessarily going to change the practice of Canada internationally.

So if we're talking about what rights an individual will have within Canada, and we already have it within our legal system that they cannot be in a legal relationship, then I think we're actually just using the smokescreen of polygamy to increase immigration powers.

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

I've heard people express concerns about what happens to children in polygamist marriages. I haven't heard any solutions in this bill as to what we could do, if anything, to alleviate those concerns.

[Rupaleem Bhuyan]

I don't have it front of me, but I believe I read a submission by UNICEF whereby they outlined some very interesting suggestions on providing avenues for the children of individuals in polygamous relationships to be able to access their rights. If they are international and one of their parents is residing in Canada and deemed inadmissible in this case, they could perhaps seek refuge in Canada. As well, if those children are currently residing...to remain with their parent who is also part of the polygamous relationship.

I encourage you to review those submissions from UNICEF.

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

Thank you for that.

In terms of 16- and 17-year-olds getting married, it would appear that parental consent is sufficient. Yet that raises the possibility, as we heard very clearly today, that a parent is involved in creating the forced marriage. I'm concerned that parental consent may not be sufficient and that some other court or other means should be required for a person of that age to get married.

I wonder if any of you have ideas as to what might be done in that area, or if you agree with me that something ought to be done.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

May we have a very short answer, please.

[Lee Marsh]

All right.

I don't know, really; maybe an assessment beforehand by social services, to make sure that this is something the child wants, might be beneficial.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe]

Thank you.

I'm sorry we don't have more time.

Mr. Leung, you have the floor.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

We talk about prevention and so on as a possible solution to these issues we're addressing on polygamy. If our front-line workers have stressed to us the importance of training police officers and immigration officers, then I believe it is important that officers of the law have the tools they need to deal with honour-based violence. Do you believe this will give front-line workers a better tool to criminalize and even prevent honour-based violence, and how do our front-line officers see these things in order to prevent them?

Ms. Siddiqui.

[Salma Siddiqui]

I think the front-line workers really need to be trained, and yes, there should be more power given to them to see what they are doing. That's the only way we can understand and move forward.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

The front-line workers can address this once they're in the country. What if they're not in the country? How do we address that issue?

[Salma Siddiqui]

Well, that's a loaded question, and I would leave it to an expert to address that. But there has to be some way of addressing it.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

All right.

Ms. Marsh, if the information had been known to you at such a young age that it was illegal to be forced into a marriage—not just certain religious groups practise this, but many ethnic groups do as well—would that have given you the tools or the ability to prevent it from happening, from it being forced on you?

[Lee Marsh]

When I was 12, I walked into a police station and reported my father for sexually abusing me. That gave me a lot of power to know that I had rights and that what was being done to me was wrong. If at 17 I had known that this was against the law, I might have done the same thing then.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

I don't mean this in a pejorative sense, but certain cultural practical or cultural groups or certain religious groups do not allow their children to be educated in the public school system, so it's hard to disseminate this information. How can we do that in the particular case of the Witnesses?

[Lee Marsh]

The Witnesses are actually moving more and more toward home-schooling their kids. Personally, I think this is very dangerous, because the children are totally secluded from the outside community. The Witnesses aren't alone in doing this. To have a requirement that once or twice a year these kids participate in a community-based program, where they can learn about things like human rights, would be very advantageous. It should be part of the agreement when children are home-schooled.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

In our fairly electronically connected modern 21st century society, are people in your religious group or cultural community permitted to have access to mobile telephones, social networks, the Internet? Are they allowed to browse and surf the internet?

[Lee Marsh]

It's very monitored. More and more, kids do have cellphones and access to computers, but as a whole the rules for the Witnesses are that you are not allowed to be surfing the Internet to find whatever information you want. The websites you are allowed to go to are very limited. That control of information is very powerful among a lot of these groups that seek to control their members—what they do, who they talk to, and what information they have.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

Professor Bhuyan, do you believe this bill will give front-line workers better tools to criminalize and even prevent honour-based violence? And how does it do that?

[Rupaleem Bhuyan]

I appreciate the question. You know, I've been working in domestic violence most of my adult life, which is now getting longer. Domestic violence is interesting, because honour is almost always present. It is almost always used as a justification for why someone lost control, or for why someone is harming another person, whether that honour be around someone's reputation within the community or their reputation around their masculinity. I don't think it's actually fair to have a distinction of “honour” as only occurring in certain communities. Certainly, there are some communities that might have shared concepts of honour that are then used as tools for abuse, and that can be very dangerous.

I also believe that part of the challenge...and I think Ms. Marsh gave a very compelling example of the very layered ways in which communities, and within families, use different practices to justify removing someone's capacity to make a decision for themselves, in this case consent for marriage. I believe the history of violence is also very compelling. We need to change the definition of family violence to understand ways in which family violence can manifest in physical abuse, verbal threats, as well as forms of violence such as coercing someone into a marriage.

I would go that route as opposed to criminalizing someone's attendance at a marriage. I believe that is way too broad. I think the Criminal Code already has mechanisms for front-line workers to hold people accountable. I think the kind of education that we've discussed may be very challenging with some of the communities that Ms. Marsh is talking about, but that would be the direction that I encourage this committee to take.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Siddiqui, would you care to comment on that, please?