Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present a petition signed by students of the women's studies program of the University of Waterloo.
These students are mindful of the fact that violence against women is often motivated by gender-based hatred, that half of Canadian women have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence, that Canadians continue to be horrified by the hate that motivated the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, and aghast that the glorification and incitement to similar acts of violence by misogynists is currently legal in Canada.
For these reasons, the petitioners urge the government to adopt my private member's bill, Bill C-380, which would add sex, the legal term for gender, to the list of identifiable groups in relation to hate propaganda provisions in the Criminal Code. Hatred and incitement to violence based on ethnicity, race and religion, and sexual orientation is proscribed by Canadian law. Why not misogyny and all gender-based hate crimes?