Mr. Speaker, we will not, as we have said in this place many times, remove the word “cultural” from the title of this bill, because the defence of these barbaric practices is often mistakenly made in the name of culture.
We want to point out that the only culture that is unacceptable here, and which we hope would be eliminated from Canada with this bill, is the culture of violence against women. There should be no defence of violence against women that makes a cultural reference. There is no room for any particular group to be insulted by this bill because, if they are engaging in violence against women, they are engaging in a crime, a barbaric practice, and all Canadians understand that it is wrong.
We, on this side of the House, are very clear about what we are trying to correct here. There are legal systems around the world that allow polygamy. There are 62 countries that allow polygamy in one way or another. Some of them are Christian-majority countries, many of them. Some of them are Muslim-majority countries. Some of them are mixed. We consider that a practice barbaric.