Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I wish I could have talked about that, but as many of my colleagues mentioned, we are unfortunately under time allocation once again, which means we have less time to speak.
I would like to quote Hannana Siddiqui, head of policy and research for Southall Black Sisters, who talked about criminalization:
The problem for us was that we worked directly with survivors and victims. A lot of them are girls and young women who say to us, “I do want protection from the police, but I don't want to prosecute my parents or my family. I don't want to see them go to jail.” They clearly said that if they went to the police and they were going to prosecute, then they would withdraw their charges; they would not cooperate or would not even go to the police in the first place.
Criminalization is therefore a problem. The government is always trying to make laws tougher instead of trying to do prevention. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That means it is our responsibility to help prevent these crimes against women, to inform them about their rights and to help them navigate our legal system.
I work with women's groups in my riding in west Montreal, and that is exactly the problem I see there. We have to help them with existing laws. Criminalization does not solve existing problems.