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.