Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House to speak to Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Civil Marriage Act and the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. This Conservative government calls this Senate bill the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act.
Before I talk about the substance of the bill, I would like to make a few comments about its title, which, when studied in the Senate, was severely criticized by stakeholders, the people who work on the ground and community groups that help women in precarious situations. We find that the short title of the bill is xenophobic because of the use of the term “barbaric”, and that it reinforces existing prejudice against certain cultural groups by targeting racial minorities for certain practices that are in fact found in Canadian society. We know that violence against women occurs throughout Canadian society and that we must address this serious problem. However, as several witnesses and stakeholders pointed out, targeting minority groups and using language that instils fear and reinforces prejudice against cultural groups does absolutely nothing to improve the situation.
This is a very serious issue. Polygamy, forced marriage and underage marriage are practices that we must tackle. We must find solutions that help women who find themselves in such situations in Canada. Yes, this does exist and does happen here in Canada. However, we are convinced that this bill is not an appropriate response to the serious problem of gender-based violence, which, I repeat, is not a cultural problem. In fact, we have seen that Bill S-7 could further aggravate the problems that exist in Canadian society with respect to forced marriage and could also jeopardize the safety and autonomy of women in forced marriages. The Conservatives are fearmongering by introducing this bill, which does nothing to solve the problems faced by women in forced marriages.
We have studied Bill S-7 and we believe that it could have some serious consequences. For example, victims of polygamy could be criminalized, children could be deported and families could be separated. The Conservative government claims to want to help women, but it is doing nothing to ensure that women have access to the services they truly need. Groups across Canada that work to help these women are vastly underfunded. I have visited a few of them in Montreal, including the South Asian Women's Community Centre. This group is one of dozens of others across the country that help these women and these families. They work very hard with very few resources.
What do these groups want, so that they can help these women and families, who are often living in precarious situations? They are calling for safe, affordable housing to provide more security for these families and these women. They are also calling for resources to provide psychological help to these families and these women, since, as members will understand, the situations these women are in can sometimes be traumatic. It is important to provide this assistance as well. Groups working on the ground are also calling for assistance for the families, which are often traumatized by having to go through the complicated legal and immigration systems.
Organizations on the ground are also asking for help for families that have, in many cases, been traumatized by complicated processes in the justice and immigration systems. This bill offers none of the much-needed resources to help these families and these women.
This bill will also have some deeply damaging consequences. The Conservative government is used to pushing its bills through without consulting the community or the people who work directly with these women.
On that note, I would like to talk about some of the laws the Conservative government has passed that have had unintended consequences for immigrants to Canada.
In March 2012, the Conservatives introduced new measures to crack down on marriage fraud, including a requirement for a sponsored spouse to live with their sponsor for two years or face deportation and possible criminal charges. Again, witnesses who came to Parliament to offer recommendations criticized this bill because of its negative consequences. It leaves women vulnerable to abuse because they are reluctant to report abuse for fear of losing permanent residency.
What is more, the Conservative member for Mississauga South, who is in the House today, moved Motion No. 505 in April 2014. This motion purported to attack forced marriages by banning marriages by proxy, telephone or fax from qualifying for spousal sponsorship.
Perhaps her intention was good since more measures are needed to address the issue of forced marriage. However, this measure does not help vulnerable individuals, immigrants and refugees, who are often the ones who make use of distance marriages. This measure served to limit family reunification rather than forced marriage.
The measures that I just mentioned thus have a number of negative consequences that put victims of forced marriage, primarily women, at an even greater risk.
I would like to speak about what we would have liked to see in this bill in order to provide real support for women who are victims of forced marriage and abuse.
First of all, we would have liked that the bill allow victims of forced or underage marriages to be exempt from the requirements of conditional permanent residence. This was also recommended by the experts who appeared before the committee. It has become apparent that conditional permanent residence is revoked in such cases. This measure was introduced in October 2012 and applies to spouses, common-law or conjugal partners in a relationship of two years or less with their sponsor and who have no children in common with the sponsor at the time of the sponsorship application. These sponsored spouses or partners have a condition attached to their permanent residence status for a period of two years from the day they receive their conditional permanent resident status in Canada. Once again, this is the measure that was presented by my colleague.
We are proposing that the spouses and children of a person who is deported for having lied to the authorities about their marital status be allowed to remain in Canada where they have settled. Our approach is focused on protecting victims.
I think that any bill must take into consideration the realities facing victims and help and encourage them to report the abuse. However, that is not what this bill does.
Instead, this is a punitive bill, and that is why we are opposed to Bill S-7.