Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I wish to note as many members today have the deep gratitude we have in particular for the folks we affectionately call “the blue shirts”, the parliamentary precinct security guards with whom I spent most of the day yesterday in their lunchroom under lockdown. They were professional, courteous and in good spirits in very trying times and put themselves in harm's way with the bravery that all of us are indebted to and I would like to thank them and pay my respects personally from the floor of the House.
Our thoughts are also of course with the six-year-old boy whose father has been lost. The flags are at half-mast across the country in respect, but our hearts are held high and our love for that young child and our support for him remain as high as possible and stream straight into the night tonight as we remember a soldier who lost his life in the line of duty.
I now turn my attention to the motion in front of us. It is a confusing motion. It is a piece of legislation that comes forward with a name and intent to go in one direction, but it heads off completely in the opposite direction. It focuses its language around the issue of trying to prevent proxy marriages, but it really seeks to try to address the issue of forced marriages. It is this confusion that makes it a difficult motion to debate because we are not really sure what the intent of this private member's motion is. It would be much clearer if the government would simply bring forward legislation that changes our immigration act and changes our Criminal Code in a way that was much clearer, much more direct in its intent, but also sought to ban a practice that was not already illegal.
My question for the motion's sponsor indicates that proxy marriages in many provinces, in fact all provinces, are not recognized. Therefore, we are seeking to make illegal something that is already illegal and redundancy is at the heart of where our concern about this motion lies.
We understand and support moves to prevent forced marriages and to prevent forced marriages from being the pretext for immigration or any other legal follow-up in this country. We understand that and we are in total support of the concerns that have been raised by all members of the House in speaking to this issue about how seriously a forced marriage violates the principles of what we see as both a spiritual and a legal arrangement that deserves much greater respect.
We note that forced marriages have a disproportionate impact on young women, on women who have been subjected to violence. The evidence presented by the South Asian Legal Clinic is very clear on this. This is a concern that the House should be concerned with and the Canadian government and Canadian law should deal with and in fact does.
The issue of proxy marriages is what the motion seeks to sculpt and limit as a legal reality, and we have concerns there. Many members may know that I was a city councillor and as a city councillor one becomes a public notary while holding the office. I remember getting instructions from our city clerk's department but also in conversation with legal colleagues about the absolute importance to be present to witness all the documents. One is part of the legal process and must bear witness to the person signing and presenting the identification.
The same is true for marriage. It is very easy to understand it and see it as simply a spiritual or religious exercise, the joining of two families as an emotional or romantic conclusion to a courtship. It is also though fundamentally at its core a legal arrangement. When that legal arrangement is extended and blended with technology, problems start to arise, in particular, if forced marriage is involved. However, when we extend or use technology to record or codify or make legal that union, there are concerns that are raised. The idea of a marriage by fax is one of those areas where we share a concern, but we do not think this is going to deal with the pretext of the motion, which is about preventing forced marriages.
A fake marriage, a bad marriage, a marriage made out of convenience to do an end run or circumvent the laws of the country are a serious matter and we share those serious concerns. None of us want to see marriage or any legal arrangement used to circumvent laws. That is not appropriate.
This is an issue where we must also accommodate modern realities, where borders change quickly, where family situations and a profoundly dysfunctional immigration system in this country prevents people from being next to each other even when they are properly and legally married. It is a concern that we all share.
I will give members an example. Without naming names, there was a case that came into my constituency office of a Canadian citizen, a professor with a Ph.D., who was working overseas in one of the Commonwealth countries and married a colleague, another recipient of a Ph.D., another person with highly-prized skills. When she came back to Toronto to teach, her partner was told that he could wait two years before rejoining her or could come here for two years and not travel or work. That is absurd. This was a legal marriage that was not forced or done by proxy and nonetheless was not honoured here.
As I listened to some of the remarks that were being made here, I noted that the members opposite denigrate people with real credentials from somewhere else with great ease. No wonder foreign-trained professionals have such a difficult time getting recognition of their citizenship, their intelligence and their capacity in this country when people with degrees from Ivy League universities are joked at for having gone abroad to receive them. Shame on the members opposite. Shame.