Madam Speaker, first of all, I wish to commend the hon. member for Québec for putting forward this bill and convincing the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to make it a votable item. This issue speaks to our fundamental values. I also wish to thank the hon. member for providing me with extensive documentation on the subject.
This issue concerns me as a citizen and a parliamentarian, of course, but also as the father of a 16-year old daughter. I shudder at the thought that, had she been born in a different country, in a different culture, she could have been subjected to the same treatment.
It is surprising and even astounding that the Canadian Criminal Code criminalizes cockfights but contains no specific provisions against female genital mutilation, because it is indeed a form of mutilation. We should not fool ourselves or try to hide behind euphemisms. Female circumcision is simply a euphemism designed to take the edge off a cruel reality. There is no comparison between male circumcision, which can even be a religious rite in some regards, and female genital mutilation. We talked earlier about the full or partial excision of the clitoris. We talked about infibulation, in which healthy organs are mutilated on purpose.
There is something absolutely outrageous about this procedure, and I was surprised to hear my colleague, the hon. member for London West, say earlier that the current provisions of the Criminal Code may be adequate, since they cover bodily harm and assaults causing bodily harm. The problem is that these provisions have been in the Criminal Code for a long time. They have been there for so long that people from other cultures who come to Canada and engage in female genital mutilation do not feel at all that they are guilty of causing bodily harm or of assault causing bodily harm.
These people feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are acting in accordance with their culture. The time has come to send them a clear message. We certainly have no mandate to become cultural imperialists, but we can say: "From the moment you cross the Canadian border, here is what the Parliament of Canada has to say. As long as you are on Canadian territory, you must adopt the following value, which we have adopted as our own-if you mutilate the genital organs of a woman, you are guilty of an indictable offence". I will come back later to the penalty which could be imposed.
This is the message that we should first and above all send, a clear, cultural message that, although we accept certain multicultural values, and many are acceptable, we have to draw the line somewhere, and we draw it here. We must say: We do not want any of this going on in our country. All the better if others follow our example and take the same legislative approach as we have. But we must send the message loud and clear that we have zero tolerance when it comes to the mutilation of female genital organs. We must make sure that everybody gets the message, because we are not only targeting people from other cultures; we are also targeting people on the inside, people who are culturally already Canadians and who, for one reason or another, are looking for excuses for shirking their responsibilities.
The criminalization of genital mutilation of female persons would involve the application of section 21 of the Criminal Code under which everyone is party to an offence who actually commits it, which includes conspiring to commit the offence, being an accessory and attempting to commit the offence. This
would cover far more people, in fact all those who willingly observe the so-called omerta, the law of silence, which is unacceptable in this context, and they will realize that as soon as Bill C-277 is passed. They ought to know that now, and in fact they do. There is an element of wishful blindness on the part of members of the medical profession who agree to engage in the genital mutilation of female persons because they say that if it is done by lay people there would be a risk of infection.
This does not make sense. It is like people who say that at least if we do the excision or infibulation, it is under anaesthetic. There is something very wrong with that type of reasoning. Whether it hurts or not is not the point. The point is whether we are prepared to tolerate such a brutal, I would even say bestial act.
The hon. member for Québec said earlier that 6,000 young girls or young women undergo this horrifying operation every day. I saw it on television once. It was very painful to watch, and it turned my stomach to see a girl of ten or not even that, tied up with a piece of wood in her mouth to keep her from screaming or to stifle her screams. It was awful. These images were horrible. And I think no Canadian who would see this violation of the integrity of the human body could remain unmoved.
I have no problem supporting the bill sponsored by the hon. member for Québec, for the reasons I just mentioned. We must put an end to this because, by tolerating or claiming to tolerate genital mutilation, we are merely giving further credit to a status that for a long time was and in some respects still is the lot of women in Canada and in the western world, to be a second class person.
Remember that female suffrage in Canada only came after the First World War. The first woman to sit in this House, Agnes Macphail, was elected in 1921. For a long time, members of the female sex were considered mere subordinates. It has not always been easy. It is still not easy in this country to take one's womanhood and assert it right to the top.
The reason you are in the chair today is not because you were given the position, but because you and your parents and your grandparents fought to put you there. What a vibrant symbol to have a woman in the chair. We could set an example in various ways, but the point should be made in another respect that, in terms of the status of women, major changes are still required in areas where this still applies.
Equal treatment for women, obviously not only equal under the law-we already have this pretty well everywhere now-, but equal in fact. Equal in fact means having people understand, from the earliest age, that men and women are born, live and die equally-not only in law but in fact. When we accept these principles, we will then be able to advance the status of women in Canada.
One comment on the proposal by my colleague for Québec: the punishment for the offence she proposes to make of the mutilation of genital organs is, in my opinion, not nearly severe enough.
Since a charge of assault causing bodily harm can result in a maximum term of 14 years' imprisonment, I will suggest in committee, because I am sure the House will refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, that the maximum sentence be at least 14 years as well.
The maximum sentence must be the sentence given the worst criminal in the worst situation. In the case of a repeat offence or multiple offences, the five year sentence seems inadequate. This can easily be done in committee. On the principle of the matter, I will support Bill C-277 when the vote is taken.