Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure and pride to rise today in my place to speak in support of Bill S-7, the zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act.
I have been a member of Parliament now for almost four years for the great riding of York Centre. I was born and raised in the riding of York Centre, and now I am raising my family there. It is probably one of the most ethnocultural ridings in Canada.
We have the largest number of Russian-speaking people of any riding in the country. We have one of the largest populations of Filipino people, one of the largest populations of Vietnamese people, one of the largest populations of Hispanic people and one of the largest populations of Jewish people. Plus, we have ethnic representation from virtually every other imaginable ethnicity of which we can dream. That is a wonderful thing, and that is what makes Canada such a great country. York Centre is merely a microcosm of our great country of Canada.
We are a nation of immigrants. We are all from somewhere else, and we come here because Canada represents this great country of hope and opportunity, yes for ourselves but, more important, for our kids. People come here because they want to escape racism and persecution. They want a better life for themselves and, more particularly, for their kids so they can achieve all the hopes, dreams and aspirations possible for a human being.
I rise today and speak about the various ethnicities and ethnocultural representation we have in our great country of Canada. We are this country of diasporas. When I am in my riding of York Centre, I am privileged to go to a different event almost every night that is ethnocultural based. Sometimes I go to two, three or four events in a night.
All these ethnic groups are different. They all celebrate something different, representing their own culture. However, what they are doing is the most Canadian thing we can ever imagine. They are celebrating where they come from, but what they are most proud of and what unites them all, notwithstanding where they originally come from, is that they are proud Canadians. They are proud of our Canadian values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. They take great pride in that. Whenever I mention the word “Canada”, bar none, we get a standing ovation because everybody wants to celebrate being Canadian. They know the value of what it is to live in our great country of Canada, and they know what they left behind. Yes, they can celebrate their culture and their differences, but they know at the end of the day they are most proud of being Canadian.
That is why it is so important we pass Bill S-7. As a country, it is inconsistent with our values, and we will not tolerate allowing people into it who will practise barbaric acts. People say that the title of the bill is provocative. Yes, it is intentionally so because we want to label these acts as barbaric.
That is unlike the leader of the Liberal Party who, a few years ago, had a problem with the word “barbaric”. When Citizenship and Immigration Canada put out a guide for new Canadians, it used the word “barbaric“ in the guide, and it referred to certain acts like female genital mutilation and forced marriages for young women. These acts were declared barbaric, and the Liberal leader went to his Twitter page stated his objection to the use of the word “barbaric”. He said that it did not take into account cultural sensitivities. He said that there were different cultures out there that were inconsistent with the values that we had in Canada, but that we nevertheless must respect those values, and such barbarism must be respected. He took umbrage with that word. However, when the Liberal leader was confronted by many Canadians who objected to his objection of the word “barbaric”, he said, “Perhaps I got tangled in semantic weeds”.
He said, and this is the best, that the government should use the words that make “an attempt at responsible neutrality”. We are not in the neutrality business. We are in the business of promoting the values of Canadians, what Canadians take pride in. As I said earlier, we take pride in our Canadian values and stand up for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law because we are proud of our country and we will not accept people who come to our country and want to practise barbaric acts.
The opposition says that the bill would put it underground. It is underground right now. A woman cannot go to a hospital and ask to have her genitals mutilated. We as a country are taking a stand. We as a government are saying this is wrong. Yes, the legislation serves an educational purpose and a pedagogical purpose because we need to send a strong message to those people who would dare think that in our great country of Canada these barbaric practices are acceptable, because they absolutely are not.
I would hope the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party would not engage in their moral relativism and think that there is nothing right and there is nothing wrong, that everybody needs to debate and everything is a gray area. No, there are certain rights, imperatives and things that are right and wrong, and barbaric practices such as female genital mutilation, forced marriages and honour killings are wrong. We take a stand against that as do Canadians. We know where Canada stands.
The Canadian people sent us here to do a job. We take that job very seriously. We are honoured to have that responsibility. We have a responsibility to the Canadian people to ensure our country is protected.
We are sending our armed forces to northern Iraq to fight against ISIS. What is ISIS doing? We have seen it burn human beings alive. We know it takes little girls from their towns and use them as sex slaves and sells them into slavery. It cuts off the heads of women, children and men. We have sent our armed forces there, along with a coalition, to fight against this objectionable behaviour, to fight against these thugs and barbarians. We do not want this in Canada.
The Canadian people have spoken. The Canadian people have made it clear that we will never—we have not in the past, we will not now, and we will not in the future—accept these barbaric acts. We will never do it, and we stand firm in that. Our government is representing the views and beliefs of the Canadian people by introducing this legislation.