Mr. Speaker, let me ask you this question: If the justice minister were a woman, do you not think that we would already have a bill amending the Criminal Code and explicitly prohibiting the genital mutilation of female persons?
Were it not for the initiative of the hon. member for Québec, women would still be waiting for a bill to protect the victims of such a barbaric and cruel practice. Genital mutilation of female persons is one of the most harmful forms of violence against young girls and it is a terrible violation of their fundamental right to physical integrity.
Just thinking of such an atrocity totally overwhelms me with horror and disgust and I must warn the Minister of Justice that he is likely to find the description I am about to give extremely disturbing. Perhaps after hearing it he will better understand the kind of butchery being practiced throughout the world, including Canada and Quebec.
There are three forms of mutilation carried out. I will present them in order of degree. The first, removal of the prepuce of the clitoris; the second, excision, which involves removing the entire clitoris and often the adjacent portions of the labia minora; the third, infibulation, which involves excising the entire clitoris, the labia minora and a portion of the labia majora.
When infibulation is performed, both sides of the vulva are closed over the vagina, leaving a small opening for the passage of urine and menstrual blood. In infibulation, the vaginal orifice is closed either with thorns or catgut sutures. The gaping raw edges of the labia majora are held together until scar tissue forms, thus closing up the vagina except for a narrow orifice which is kept open with a small piece of wood or reed.
The child's legs are then bound together. The little girl is immobilized for several weeks or until the tissues have healed. To enable infibulated women to have sexual relations, it is necessary to open the orifice with an incision which is further enlarged when they give birth. Often they are sewn up again afterwards, at the husband's request.
There is none so deaf as those who will not hear. The Minister of Justice was definitely not listening when in December 1994, on the tragic anniversary of the massacre at the École Polytechnique, I and several of my colleagues emphatically condemned this odious practice.
This barbaric procedure has now been imported to Canada and Quebec. Our doctors are seeing an increasing number of young girls with health problems related to genital mutilation. It will soon be one year since we last discussed this in the House, and so far the Minister of Justice has done nothing to stop this practice. I hope that he will at least support the representations of my colleague, the hon. member for Québec, who has taken the trouble to table a bill prohibiting genital mutilation.
The Minister of Justice lately mentioned a series of bills tabled by his government to help victims, and the list goes: C-37, C-41, C-42 and C-45, and so forth. An impressive body of legislation, whose effectiveness remains to be seen.
The agenda of the Department of Justice is quite full. But I warn the minister that: "Grasp all, lose all". Some of the legislative measures are so far off the goal set by the government that we might be led to believe that the Minister of Justice has undertaken a Sisyphean task.
In November 1994, the Quebec Minister of Justice, Paul Bégin, demanded that his federal counterpart prohibit genital mutilation and amend the Criminal Code accordingly. Sweden, Belgium, Norway, the United Kingdom and some American States have already passed legislation prohibiting genital mutilation.
The Minister of Justice had the gall to answer that the sections of the Criminal Code dealing with assault were sufficient to condemn a person guilty of practising excision. Genital mutilation is much more than just assault, it is torture, butchery and an unqualifiable violation of a human person.
The House managed to pass on the double a bill to protect victims and facilitate the arrest of the guilty parties. Thanks to the support of the official opposition, Bill C-104 on DNA passed through all stages on the same day, June 22 of this year. The Minister of Justice is always willing to play Lancelot when he knows that a bill will get unanimous support. It is easy to preach for virtue. It is something else to make political hay out of it.
Where is the fearless Lancelot in today's debate? He is dragging his feet, he is consulting. Last summer our Don Quixote of public security thought that it would be useful to organize an information session on mutilation of women's genital organs for interested members. Guests of the Minister of Justice were Eunadie Johnson and Fadumo Dirie, cochairpersons of the Ontario task force on the prevention of genital mutilation of female persons.
The minister expected that Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dirie would concur with his views on the risk of unilateral legislation dealing specifically with genital mutilation. He was reluctant to introduce a bill because he thought such an action would push that practice further underground.
But, lo and behold, both guests answered yes to the question of whether a specific piece of legislation would send a clear message to communities which practice mutilation. A criminal code amendment would demonstrate that our society considers that practice unacceptable and that if it is deemed acceptable in other countries, it is not so in Canada or in Quebec.
After the meeting, the Minister of Justice admitted he was not so sure any more about his position. Today, the bill before the House is not a government bill, but a bill introduced by one of my Bloc Quebecois colleagues. That speaks for itself. On this side of the House, we dare to act according to our beliefs. I urged the Minister of Justice to at least support the bill presented by the hon. member
for Québec, if he did not have the courage to introduce an amendment to the Criminal Code.
I request the same thing from all members. We should rise above partisanship and indeed do as we say, as we began to do some time ago with private members' bills.