Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 30th, 2015

[Kamal Dhillon]

I think there should be more awareness. I'm not sure how you're going to promote and let people know, but there needs to be agencies and advocates out there speaking out on this and letting people know.

I, for one, go to the schools and speak against schoolyard bullying and violence. I make people aware. I remember at one school a student said to me, “Ms. Dhillon, had you spoken to us about this a year ago, I would have saved two of my friends from being shot.”

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

When you go to schools to talk about underage marriages or forced marriages, do you think that when and if this bill becomes the law of the land, it will help you to convey to those students that this is the law now and they can take these actions, that they are not under any obligation to be forced to go to a foreign country to bring somebody here as an immigrant and then maybe move away?

[Kamal Dhillon]

I can do that, but here's my question. If they are forced, they probably will not be told that they're being taken to get married. Once they're in that country, say in India, is there any law that's going to protect them there?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We've concluded our time, Mr. Shory. I'm sorry.

Madam Blanchette-Lamothe.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank the witnesses for participating in today's meeting. Ms. Dhillon, I hope you can hear the simultaneous interpretation.

You talked earlier about the importance of sending a strong message. Everyone around this table agrees that any kind of violence against women, including forced marriage, is unacceptable. The debate is rather about the best way to counter that type of violence. You talked about how important it is to send a strong message. In the latest budget, which was tabled last week, the only funding set aside for promoting any kind of a message was intended for promoting the Conservatives' budget and not for combatting violence against women.

You said that you spent 14 years in an abusive situation. During that time, you had rights as a woman. What finally helped you break the silence? Was it a new bill? What helped break that silence?

[Kamal Dhillon]

I think what helped me break the silence was being a mother of four kids, two girls and two boys. I did not want the cycle repeated. I actually was not aware of any bills or any rights because I was so confined and scared. However, when I did go to the shelter, I knew that I had some rights, for instance getting a restraining order against my husband. I had to take that step to know that I had some rights, but I wasn't aware of them ahead of time.

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

Thank you.

Can you give us one specific provision of Bill S-7 that might have helped you?

[Kamal Dhillon]

I'm not fully aware of the bill, but knowing that there are some rights for victims.... I think in the barbaric situation I was in, any hope would have been a big hope for me.

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

Thank you very much.

You say that it's not really about Bill S-7 itself, but about sending a clear and strong message that women have rights. I completely agree. I still want to repeat that I feel the bill is not necessarily the best solution and that women already have rights.

Ms. Lamboley, you were listing potential solutions before being interrupted. I would like you to finish what you were saying.

[Madeline Lamboley]

So I will continue my list: implement a national action plan that will truly encourage a concerted effort among community institutions and organizations—a crucial step in this kind of a situation; adopt a protocol for combatting forced marriage—many initiatives are being undertaken left and right, but they would really need to be concerted, and a holistic approach would have to be adopted focusing on prevention, victim protection and the penalization of aggressors, at the same time; adopt a clear policy on the sharing of confidential information related to youth protection—in many cases, this is problematic, but sharing that information could be crucial; use a civilian approach through protection measures against forced marriage. The United Kingdom did that. It would probably be a wise first step. I have met women and key informants, and regardless of what intervention approach is used, we are convinced that we need a better solution to end the violence, without potentially giving rise to secondary victimization, which is just as harmful to victims.

Above all, the legislative amendments must be accompanied by victim protection measures, and more funding must be provided to organizations working on resolving those issues and helping the victims of such abuse. The community aspect is also very important. Those are the people working on the front lines with victims.

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

You brought up the victimization and stigmatization of victims several times.

Could you tell us a bit more about that?

How could the bill currently before us make the victimization or stigmatization of victims worse?

[Madeline Lamboley]

The expression “barbaric cultural practices” is used in the very title of the bill. But it should be pointed out that this kind of practice is not encountered only in cultural communities. Other women across Canada are its victims, too. Further stigmatization of the issue must be avoided. As Ms. Dhillon said, the women sometimes don't speak French or English. They are also not aware of their rights.

As part of my thesis work, I met a woman who did not even know about the 911 number. First and foremost, the women have to be told about their rights in their mother tongue, so as to ensure that they understand what they are entitled to. They must also be provided with basic information such as the 911 number and be informed of their immigration rights. Some of them think they can be deported simply because their husband so wishes, and that is not the case.

In short, it's really a matter of providing them with basic information on their rights, in their mother tongue.

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

Thank you.

You suggested looking into the possibility of making forced marriage an aggravating factor rather than criminalizing it as Bill S-7 does.

Can you tell me a bit more about that suggestion?

[Madeline Lamboley]

We feel that many things are already covered in the Criminal Code, such as female genital mutilation. When has that provision been used? It has been used once, and the case was dropped.

Criminalizing forced marriage would indeed send a clear message. However, would it prevent forced marriages? Would it eradicate them? I'm not so sure of that. There is also a provision on human trafficking. How many times has it been used? If the goal is to send a message to Canadians, there may be ways other than criminalization to do so.

In addition, when it comes to forced marriages, the matter of evidence is a significant problem. To an extent, it's her word against his. What's particular about this form of violence is that the aggressor is not only the husband or the family, but rather the husband, the family, the in-laws, the community and the extended family. In the case of Banaz Mahmod, who was killed in the United Kingdom, some 50 people were involved in her murder.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're going to have to move on. I'm sorry, Ms. Lamboley; we have time limits.

Go ahead, Mr. McCallum.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

Mr. Spratt, if I interpret you correctly, you are saying that while the Conservatives may be trying to make honour killing even more illegal than it is, they're failing because it's already as illegal as it's possible to be. With respect to the provocation defence, I think you're saying that they are taking away the provocation defence for things that maybe ought to be there, like if a Jewish person is submitted to extreme anti-Semitic language, or putting it there where it maybe needn't be there, like theft or mischief.

But I guess my question to you—other than to correct me if I'm interpreting you wrongly—is whether you see any role for any desirable change on the provocation issue, because I think it's true for that defence, that where it's been used successfully has generally been in the case of the killing of a spouse. Honour killing is all about that, so is there some change or improvement that could be made, or should it just be left the way it is?

[J. Michael Spratt]

Well, I think we have to distinguish between how provocation was historically applied by our courts and how it's being applied now and under the direction of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. No longer would these things fly in the courts: killing of a wife for infidelity, killing an individual because of a perceived homosexual advance, or the use in the honour context. There's no air of reality in those circumstances and it's been rejected the three times that it has been put forward.

What we should, perhaps, be doing if we want to look at the provocation section is, as some critics have said, calling a spade a spade and writing in the legislation exactly how we want this legislation to apply. I was looking at some comments from March 23 in the House where there were some comments by the government that other common-law jurisdictions have eliminated and repealed provocation altogether. That's simply not true. If you go and look at the U.K. legislation, you'll see it's true that provocation was abolished but it was replaced with another section called “loss of control”. In that section, it says it can apply to words and to comments. They have to be serious. That's set out in the legislation. But what they actually do in the legislation is what maybe we should do here if we want this bill to apply to honour killings.

That legislation says the fact that a thing done or said constituted sexual infidelity is to be disregarded. They've actually applied it through legislation to the specific targeted facts, narrowed, that they want to address and not necessarily limited the application of provocation to exclude some rare, unusual but perhaps justifiable applications in the future.

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

Do you think that the bill could be amended along those lines to make the section on provocation more helpful, or do you think it should just be dropped? What is your view on that?

[J. Michael Spratt]

I think it need not be amended. This is quite clear in the courts, and the law is clear in that respect. If the government wishes to be clear in their legislation and be focused in the legislation, as the Supreme Court says legislation should be, then it should be written into the legislation. I don't think I would object to a provision saying, “despite the foregoing, provocation shall not be raised or considered where a judge rules that the killing was motivated by honour, culture, or infidelity.” Something specific like that would not be offensive to me as a lawyer because that's already—

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

That's already there.

[J. Michael Spratt]

—already a no go in the courts.

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

What's the point of doing this if it's already there?

[J. Michael Spratt]

I suppose you could do it to send a message, but there's no funding in this bill. The message could be better sent if things were funded properly, if more resources were being made available, and if something simple like ensuring that someone who wants to bring a peace bond against a family member is provided with state-funded representation, or if the number of judges or courts we have were increased so those peace bonds could be heard more expeditiously. Things like that would be a much better use than needlessly adding sections to the already overburdened Criminal Code.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Eglinski.