Debates of May 28th, 2015

Motions in Amendment

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for a very well reasoned and sensible response to the bill. He has some good suggestions and has raised some reasonable concerns. That is the kind of debate we should have.

I sat on the public safety committee this morning. We heard an expert on terrorism and radicalization tell us that there are materials being distributed in Canada today that say that beating women is an act of kindness and love and that women owe a duty to their husbands, a duty that includes obedience and not withholding intimacy.

There are documented activities taking place in our country that are not only physically dangerous to women but also hostile in a very cultural sense.

I would ask my colleague why we need to avoid the world “culture” when clearly there are cultural dimensions to this danger to women.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comment. I also commend her for her eloquent S. O. 31 statement on the occasion of her impending departure—not too soon, but at some point. She showed that we can fit a lot of content into 60 seconds. It was a very excellent statement.

I also like the first part of her comment, when she said that some of the things that I said were reasonable—

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

That is so unusual.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

It is because he is supporting it.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding some reservations.

I think perhaps where I differ most acutely is on this word “cultural”, because I see it as being offensive to communities and because we do not gain anything by its inclusion.

If we look at the groups who are offending society in areas of polygamy and other bad things, we see they are not just Muslims. There were Jewish groups in the news for that. There were fundamentalist Christian groups based in British Columbia. There are a number of different religious groups or sects, or whatever we want to call them, that are guilty of these crimes, but only certain groups take offence to the use of the word “culture”, thinking that it is directed at them.

From a practical point of view, if the word offends some people but does not add anything to the final product, why put it in? I would say to take it out.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask my colleague the same question that I asked the parliamentary secretary because I believe that the problem here is the criminalization of victims.

We have debated a number of bills in the House of Commons describing a person as a victim, but criminalizing them at the same time. I do not understand. I know that he briefly spoke to that in his speech.

Why is it that, in some debates, the Liberals condemn the Conservatives for wanting to make criminals of the victims and in others they support the fact that the victims will be criminalized and, therefore, marginalized and unfortunately left to fend for themselves with no help?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we could say that the victims are criminalized to some degree, and we could debate that. However, I have confidence in our justice system. We have special proceedings for youth, for those under 18 years of age. In that case, the system can act judiciously.

For example, take the case of a young man who is 17, and thus a minor, who participates in the forced marriage of his sister. Perhaps he should be treated as a criminal. It seems to me that we could debate the issues raised by the member. Nevertheless, we want to vote for this bill.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Québec, Consumer Protection; the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou, the Environment.

Resuming debate, the hon. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, of course in this debate we are again hearing from the Liberals that they would like to take the word “cultural” out of the title because, as we have heard throughout many months of debate in this place and outside of it, the Liberals still accept that there is a possible defence of violence against women and girls in the name of culture.

We believe there is no such defence. We believe there is no such defence in the name of tradition or in the name of honour. Violence is violence. It is a crime, and we will not stand for that amendment or any of the others that would water down this important bill.

It is not surprising that this kind of proposal continues to come from the Liberal Party, because over 13 years in government it did nothing on these issues. Instead of waking up to the issue of human smuggling, the Liberals listed bringing exotic dancers to Canada, not in the hundreds but in the thousands, as a legitimate occupation under our temporary foreign worker program. Many of them went into the sex trade and many of them went into exploitative roles. We ended that and we are proud of it.

If I can throw members' minds back nine years, it was in 2006 that this process of reforming Canadian immigration began. We inherited backlogs and abuse. We still see an unwillingness from the Liberal Party of today to acknowledge that there had been abuse and that the residency rules for citizenship for permanent residents had been flouted. The immigrant investor program in effect brought some money as loans to provinces and territories but brought very few people to Canada, because there was an industry of consultants and lawyers who systematically sought to ensure that large populations of people could pretend they were living in Canada when in fact they were elsewhere. This was unacceptable. It was unacceptable to leave the immigration consultants' world unregulated, as the Liberals did not just for those 13 years in government but for decades.

That is why I am proud, as I know everyone is on our side, to be speaking to the zero tolerance for barbaric practices bill at report stage, not only because of its own merits but because it builds on a solid and wide legacy of achievement by this government over nine years.

Not only have we legislated to protect women and girls in the spousal program in our refugee streams across the board, but we have also legislated to remove foreign criminals faster from this country to make sure our asylum system is not open to abuse and to make sure that human smugglers do not have the incentive to bring people to our shores on unsafe journeys of the kind we see in the Mediterranean today, where thousands are dying every month. Those risks are unacceptable.

Canada's generosity should not be generating new risk or putting people's lives at risk in new ways. We should be saving lives. That is exactly what we have been doing since these reforms came into effect, even as we have been strengthening the value of Canadian citizenship and restoring the pride that Canadians have always had, a pride that was threatened after the reforms the Liberals brought forward in 1977.

We have reformed every economic immigration program we have. The Liberals pointed to the federal skilled worker program, our flagship program, as their top achievement in immigration, yet it took six to eight years for people to come through that program, even at the beginning of our time in government, because it was very difficult for us to act in a minority situation. We have brought it to the point where last week I met someone in British Columbia who had been processed under express entry as a federal skilled worker in two weeks. That person gained the opportunity to be selected to come to Canada through a comparison that was made of her skills and education with those of other candidates. That is the way we need to go and that is the way we have gone.

We ended the failed immigrant investor program and replaced it with a start-up visa for entrepreneurs, the first in the world. We replaced it with an immigrant investor venture capital pilot program, which is bringing larger-scale resources into the venture capital sector, which has so much potential to bring a whole new generation of start-up companies through the various stages of growth and expansion to be major employers in Canada. We also launched the action plan for faster family reunification and the super visa.

We will never hear a Liberal mention any of these initiatives. They deny that they even exist, that 75,000 parents and grandparents have come to Canada in only three years or that 50,000 visitors have received super visas, the right to come to Canada for up to 10 years and to be here for up to two years at a time, with health insurance paid by the inviting party. It is a revolution in the ability of families to choose the right tool to allow them to come together for family occasions, for births, for weddings, and for anniversaries here in Canada. It has been of enormous benefit, as anyone who speaks to newcomer groups knows.

We have also enhanced our refugee programs, not just by agreeing to take 10,000 Syrian refugees this year, next year, and in the following year but also by focusing on the resettlement of the most vulnerable the world over. We see that with our current target of 23,000 Iraqi refugees, many of them from vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities, over 20,000 of whom are already here.

We also launched the federal skilled trades program, which is very much needed and very much overdue, and created the Canadian experience class, which invites those who have already studied and worked in Canada, who have the experience and have proven themselves in our market, to come to Canada. Some 23,000 will do so this year.

We have also extended the provincial nominee program seven times beyond what it was under the Liberals to make sure that immigrants are going to every province and territory, to larger communities and smaller ones, to meet the needs of employers and meet the needs of this growing country.

Immigration is not an end in itself. This country is based on it, absolutely, but immigrants want to work. They want to be part of a successful economy. That is the opportunity this government has given. We have strong immigration programs because we have shown the ability to manage this economy strongly, to return to balance, to keep this a low-tax jurisdiction for jobs and growth, to attract international investment, and to open markets. That is what is attracting newcomers to this country.

We select them on the basis of their skills and experience while respecting the principle of family reunification, while being more generous to refugees than we have ever been on a sustained basis, and while strengthening the value of our citizenship. It is economic prosperity. It is the responsibilities of citizenship, which include the dedication newcomers have, in very large measure, to the rule of law and to justice in this country. It is our duty of protection to those in our immigration programs and those beyond our shores who would dearly love to come here.

What would Bill S-7 do to enhance this?

It would make polygamists inadmissible to Canada. Second, it would raise the national minimum age for marriage to 16. Third, it would require those marrying to dissolve all their previous unions. Fourth, it would require those marrying to give their free and enlightened consent and to ensure that it is truly enlightened. Fifth, it would criminalize active and knowing participation in forced marriage or the removal of a person from Canada for the purpose of underage or forced marriage. Sixth, it would limit the defence of provocation to cases where the defendant was him or herself the victim of a indictable offence punishable by up to five years' imprisonment. In other words, one could only cite provocation, once Bill S-7 becomes law, if one had been the victim of a serious violent crime. Seventh, it would establish access to peace bonds to prevent forced marriage, underage marriage, or removal for those purposes.

This is about the protection of women and girls. This is about ending domestic violence. This is about joining up with the work John Baird did as foreign minister to partner with United Nations agencies and countries around the world to end forced and underage marriage.

It is astonishing that the NDP would oppose every aspect of the bill. It is typical that the Liberals would be strongly in opposition to the bill at the start and then, once they saw how strongly Canadians supported it, would migrate over to our position while hiding behind the fig leaf of wanting to change a single word to show that somehow they have a principle and a policy to stand on.

Liberal ambiguity on immigration, Liberal inability to apply the rules, even of their own ill-conceived programs before 2006, gave this country a legacy of decades of darkness and abuse in immigration. This Conservative government spent nine years cleaning that mess up. We have ended abuse, we have curbed vulnerability, and we have taken criminality out of our immigration flows, and Bill S-7 is a fitting capstone to a proud legacy of achievement for this government.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what he is saying is preposterous. After 10 years in office, the Conservative government is basically taking Canada in the wrong direction again.

There are already laws that make most of what he is talking about illegal. He knows that when it comes to allowing people to come to Canada, whether on visas or as permanent residents, the government already has the power to deny people. If the government knows that people are practising polygamy and it does not want them in Canada, it has the authority to do that.

Canadian criminal law provides for a lot of the actions he is talking about. Uttering threats is covered in the Criminal Code under section 264.1. Aggravated assault is under section 265 and in section 268 for bodily harm. There is sexual assault, and the list goes on and on. We already have laws. The Conservatives are just trying to pull the wool over Canadians' eyes. They are promoting discrimination and racism, as I said a while ago.

If they are so serious about dealing with violence against women, why is it that they will not call for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women? Why are they not investing in shelters for people? Why are they not investing in housing for people? It is shameful.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as with missing and murdered aboriginal women, so with regard to forced marriage, polygamy, honour-based violence, and violence against women and girls across the board. We are not looking for new plans, new reports, and new exercises in reflection, where NDP supporters can come together and decide that they are going to do nothing, once again. We are looking at taking action, and that is precisely what we are doing in the bill.

The member opposite thinks that everything is fine, that the status quo is perfect. She has not even spoken to her own supporters in downtown Toronto and elsewhere across the country. Agencies funded by us, but who clearly support the opposition on almost everything, have themselves identified hundreds of cases of forced marriage and hundreds of cases of polygamy that lead to terrible cases of mental anguish and lifelong violence.

It is unacceptable for these things to be happening in Canada. It is not enough to have the law as it is. Bill S-7 will protect women and girls, and the NDP should understand that.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has drunk so much Kool-Aid, and there is such an air of almost total unreality to every word he says, that it is almost impossible to know where to begin.

However, the good news is that the new Canadians I see in these communities agree with me. They know from their own experience that the system is broken, and they reject the argument that it is somehow a nine-year transition period and that everything that is wrong today is because of what happened under the Liberals 10 years ago. The most elementary logic suggests that this makes zero sense.

I would like to ask the minister about two examples. Perhaps the most egregious example was in answer to my colleague in question period when he complained about the denial rate for caregivers being 97% under the new Conservative program from January to March of 2015. Somehow this was the fault of the Liberals. A program the Conservatives had just brought in in 2014-15, with a denial rate of 97%, was the fault of the Liberals.

We can also look at the processing times in 2007. They went up, up, up and dramatically up in 2011, when the Conservatives cut funding. That is the fault of the Liberals. How can the minister sustain such an entirely illogical narrative and expect anyone to believe it?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we on this side are proud to report that we have not been drinking the same things as the member for Markham—Unionville.

We are equally proud to point out to this audience and beyond that the member who is the critic for this portfolio cannot even find a single question relating to Bill S-7 to ask in this debate. That is after opposing the bill through second reading, in public, furiously, saying that it would do no good. He has clearly come around to what works, because Conservative policies on immigration work.

On the caregiver program, it was established in a form that was guaranteed to provide backlogs and guaranteed to separate caregivers from their families for up to 10 years. We have changed that. The backlog will be gone within two years. A huge number of caregivers have been approved under the new program.

The Liberals will always cherry-pick the statistics they want. The reality is that hundreds of caregivers are here under the new reform. The program is working faster. They are going to have better career prospects than ever before.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for giving me the opportunity to speak to this bill.

It is strange to see that our colleagues in the Conservative caucus, including the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, have taken up this Senate bill here in the House.

I want to start by reaffirming what my colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing said so well. For 10 years, the Conservative government repeatedly led Canada in the wrong direction, and this bill is just one of many others. My colleague was right to point out that there are already provisions in the Criminal Code and in the Civil Code to combat everything this bill claims to address.

To my knowledge, naturally, it is quite rare in Canada to hear about polygamy, forced marriage or early marriage, except in some very specific situations. I remember a part of the Civil Code that deals with the emancipation of minors through marriage. The provision allowed for minors who willingly entered into a marriage to be considered as adults.

I also want to explain why I am happy to be discussing this bill, despite its many problems. I am doing so to show my support for all the amendments that were proposed by the NDP caucus in committee, as well as by other opposition members.

At the beginning of today's debate, I heard that the opposition brought forward 17 motions, and the Conservatives rejected all of them in committee, right before second reading. The Conservatives did not propose any amendments. How is it that a bill can come to us from the Senate and it can be taken on by a minister and his parliamentary secretary, who both know very well that we have the Canadian Multiculturalism Act?

They say that we should pass the bill so we can protect these people, which does not make any sense, when they have no intention of taking it seriously or analyzing the contents of the 17 amendments that were brought forward.

In principle, the bill is commendable, for it is meant to combat polygamy, and early and forced marriage, which definitely should be stopped. However, the proposed approach is not the right one.

If the Conservatives had been able to support the motion and accept the amendments, we could have improved the bill and made it effective. It is our duty as legislators to introduce legislation that makes sense.

Once again, in the title alone, there is something unusual. As my colleague, the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île, did such a good job of explaining, the title, which is appalling, points a finger right at women from certain communities and stigmatizes certain cultures deemed “barbaric”. There is something missing somewhere.

That reminds me of something that still surprises me. Just yesterday, Motion No. 444 was rejected. That was a motion to end violence against women. The entire Conservative caucus rejected it. Once again, I was surprised to see that of the 159 members of the Conservative caucus, 28 are women, which represents about 17.5%. That is not a big number, relatively speaking, but it nevertheless seems to me that those women should have taken an interest in the intention of the motion.

Getting back to Bill S-7, regardless of its appalling title, which the Conservatives never wanted to change, what we need to do is come up with a bill that really tackles the source of the problem. Of course, as I said earlier, I do not believe that this problem is particularly widespread here in Canada, except among immigrants from other cultures who engage in these practices, which seems to be the case. However, it also seems to me, as my Liberal Party colleague explained, that there are safeguards. Our Citizenship and Immigration Canada officers in visa sections in embassies have the means to detect all kinds of irregularities, and they can really be strict about saying that such practices are not allowed in Canada. It therefore has to be something that really violates what has already been established in our Civil Code or in common law on the English side.

I discovered another rather interesting situation. At the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, the members of our party tried several times to amend the bill, especially the title and certain concepts in the clauses, in order to ensure that the victims would not be penalized. That did not happen. We end up with the same situation, as usual with the Conservatives. As our opposition colleagues mentioned, the mission of the Conservative caucus is to let things drag on. The Conservatives have been in power for 10 years, and they have not really found solutions. The expression “working together” means absolutely nothing to them. They insist, with a degree of arrogance, on imposing closure and putting an end to debate.

What everyone is objecting to is primarily the title. Many witnesses who came before the committee found the title offensive and unacceptable.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, several times the member referred to amendments at committee. Had he taken the time to read the transcript, the minutes of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration deliberations on this particular bill, he would know that many of those amendments were ruled out of order on the advice of the House of Commons-appointed clerk on the committee. Those that were not, did not succeed and clearly were not substantive enough to substantiate a change to the bill that dealt with the issue in depth.

As I said in my speech, our government will not tolerate cultural traditions in Canada that deprive individuals of their human rights, such as forced marriage, honour killings, polygamy and so forth.

My question to the member is simple. Does he believe that acts such as forced marriage, honour killings and polygamy are actually barbaric when they are forced on innocent women and girls who do not give their consent?

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his question. He began by asking if I had read the amendments. Obviously the answer is no. I have no knowledge of these amendments because I am not a member of the committee.

With respect to his last question about the bill, what we are saying and keep repeating is that our members' suggestions in committee should help improve the bill and make it more effective. In principle, that is what should happen. Our members try to improve the bill by moving amendments. However, the Conservatives reject the amendments. They only want to keep the original, no matter how badly worded. They do not care. They want to do things their way.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration we hear a litany of what I would classify as falsehoods indicating just how wonderfully the government is doing on the immigration file.

When I reflect on the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration's speech and when he made the statement that Bill S-7 kind of puts a cap on all these wonderful achievements, I cannot help but wonder, if only the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration had as much enthusiasm at resolving the types of problems that are in the immigration department today, let alone citizenship, if Canadians would be that much further ahead.

Would the member agree with that assessment?

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North for his question. He is absolutely right. The minister was bragging about the success of his management approach, but in my riding, there is a fairly high number of immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds. They come to my office to get information on topics that are directly related to this minister's management of the department. Recently, I even approached the minister directly, in person, to ask him some questions. He has a very laissez-faire attitude. I do not see why he says that his management approach is such a success or how they are able to detect anything at all.

Although this bill comes from the Senate, it has the government's support. I do not believe that the government is really going to get members to support a bill if it imposes gag orders and forces the vote in its usual arrogant manner so that the bill passes in the form the government wants.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to address this important piece of legislation in the House today on behalf of my constituents in the great riding of Wetaskiwin. I always stand never knowing for sure if this is going to be the last time I speak as a member of Parliament for Wetaskiwin, but I certainly take every opportunity to recognize the great people that I have been fortunate to represent for the last 10 years. The ridings are changing in Alberta and half of my riding will be lost, so it is always nice to acknowledge the folks who sent me here on their behalf. Many of them communicate to me their strong desires on certain issues. I have no doubt where the people in my constituency stand on this issue.

I am pleased to have the opportunity today to speak about Bill S-7, which is an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Civil Marriage Act and the Criminal Code and to make consequential amendments to a few other pieces of legislation. Bill S-7 aims to ensure that early and forced marriage and other harmful cultural practices, such as polygamist marriages and so-called “honour-based” violence, do not occur on Canadian soil. It would do so by amending the Civil Marriage Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and, of course, the Criminal Code.

Today I would like to speak to the proposed amendment to the Criminal Code, the defence of provocation. The provocation defence applies only to a murder charge and, when successful, reduces a murder charge down to manslaughter, thereby giving rise to wide judicial discretion in sentencing and, in most cases, significantly lower sentences than if the person had been convicted of murder. The proposed amendment would limit the defence so that it would only apply where a person is killed in response to provoking conduct by the victim that was objectively serious and contrary to the norms and behaviours set down for all of society.

More specifically, the provocation by the victim would have to amount to a criminal offence with a maximum sentence of at least five years. The defence would continue to be available where a person loses control and kills someone suddenly upon finding that person assaulting or abusing a family member, or committing any number of other serious criminal offences. The amendment is not only intended to stop the defence from being raised in honour killings but also from being raised in spousal killing situations where it is still sometimes successful. There are situations where people who kill will often claim to have done so in response to some lawful, albeit insulting, conduct by the victim.

This reform responds to two decades of criticism that the defence of provocation in these cases operates to excuse male violence against women and to reaffirm men's beliefs that they are entitled to possess and control women regardless of what those women want. This, of course, is a very similar dynamic to what is seen in honour killing cases, where men, whether it be a father, a husband or brother, but sometimes also women, seek to kill women or girls in their families when they make their own choices about how to behave that are in conflict with the wishes of other family members.

Many of the commentators who testified before the committee said that the proposed provocation reforms were unnecessary because the courts have already made clear that provocation is not available in an honour killing context. This has been the case argued by some across the floor. Even if the courts are in the process of narrowing the scope of the provocation defence, it begs the question: Why are the courts, rather than Parliament, addressing problems with the law? It is Parliament's job and the job of every person in the chamber to make law and correct legal problems.

Bill S-7 is Parliament's opportunity to change the law, to say that murder is not less serious just because the victim offended the killer in the moments before the killing. Critics of this proposal also ignore the fact that our government has said on many occasions that this proposed reform is also meant to address spousal killings that are not characterized as honour killings. Many who claim the defence of provocation are men who have killed their current or former partners because the relationship ended, because there was infidelity or because of verbal insults about sexual performance, and so on.

It is true that these claims are becoming less and less successful in Canadian courts, but, nonetheless, such claims do sometimes succeed. None of the witnesses who criticized this amendment addressed the fact that men in Canada sometimes still benefit from the provocation defence when they kill their current or former partners. Instead, the critics talked only about cases in which provocation claims failed, where the circumstances were characterized as honour killings.

They seem to agree that the victims of honour killings must be treated as murder victims and those who kill them as murderers, yet they do not appear to be concerned that victims of domestic killings that are not honour killings may receive a different quality of justice and are instead sometimes treated as victims of the lesser crime of manslaughter. These killers are back on the streets within a few years in some cases.

Our government believes all persons who kill their partners in response to lawful, albeit insulting, behaviour should be convicted of murder. We also believe that it is Parliament's job to make this happen by changing the law to accord with this value. It is not enough to sit back and hope that the courts will do the right thing on a case-by-case basis. In any event, it is simply not true that the courts have ruled definitively in this area.

The British Columbia Court of Appeal, in the case of R. v. Nehar, 2004 BCCA, actually found that the cultural background of the accused was relevant to his provocation claim. This case remains binding authority in British Columbia, which means that cultural claims can be accepted in the context of a provocation defence.

Many commentators have suggested that the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in the case of Humaid definitely rules out the provocation defence in honour killing cases. In that ruling, the Ontario Court of Appeal made clear that the defence failed because the Crown proved that the killing was pre-meditated, so it was not of a sudden nature and, therefore, not provoked. Having found that the appeal was resolved on the grounds that the Crown proved pre-meditation, the court said it did not have to resolve the issue about whether the accused's cultural beliefs were relevant to provocation. The court discussed what the considerations would be in resolving this issue, but expressly stated:

The resolution of this difficult issue awaits a case in which it must be resolved.

That is from the Ontario Court of Appeal in R. v. Humaid 2006, on the order paper 1507, paragraph 94.

Where does all of this leave us? It is wishful thinking and legally inaccurate to state that provocation cannot, as a matter of law, be raised by an accused who is alleged to have killed in an honour killing context. It is true that the provocation claims in honour killing cases are likely to be rejected by judges and juries, but the critics are incorrect when they suggest that the defence cannot even be raised or considered. We have already seen that it has been considered in British Columbia, and court is awaiting a case where it can be considered in Ontario.

These claims will be made again, and they will produce more appeals, which will cost the justice system more time and energy, and which will bring more pain to the families of the victims, who have to face longer trials and appeals. We, as legislators, can stop that from happening by passing Bill S-7 as soon as possible and by declaring that no one is entitled to leniency for intentionally killing another because of any type of insult that is otherwise lawful.

Some critics are concerned about unintended consequences of limiting the provocation defence. Scenarios involving racial slurs were mentioned on a few occasions. In most such cases, both parties are drunk, both parties are insulting each other, and in many cases, both parties are also assaulting or threatening each other, which is unlawful conduct in and of itself. No cases were identified wherein a person who was minding his or her own business and was aggressively verbally assaulted with racial insults was thus provoked to kill. This is a very unlikely occurrence.

There are risks of retaining provocation for racial insults. A 2013 case from Ontario involved a successful provocation defence by a man who brutally killed his wife in the context of a marriage breakdown. The accused alleged that his wife made a racial slur, the contents of which were not disclosed in the court's reasons. The accused was, therefore, convicted of manslaughter, a lesser charge, not murder, and sentenced to serve only four years and four months' imprisonment, despite the sentencing judge finding the provocation to be of little mitigating value.

The danger of retaining provocation in order to show leniency to those who are racially insulted is that it can also apply in the context of a relationship breakdown, where people offer up insults in order to hurt each other emotionally with some regularity.

There are other safeguards built into our criminal justice system that should not be forgotten in the event that there is an unforeseen but genuinely sympathetic set of circumstances for which the provocation defence would no longer apply. For example, the Crown could find that it is not in the public interest to prosecute that person for murder and can accept a guilty plea to manslaughter without any need for the accused to raise the provocation defence.

In closing, to better protect women and girls in this country, the time has come for Canada to bring the law of provocation out of the 17th century and into conformity with our modern values as other like-minded nations have done. I hope that all members will support this proposal and all other elements of Bill S-7. It is time we moved forward with this very valuable legislation. We continue to stand up for victims, to put victims' needs first, and to protect those who are most vulnerable in our society, namely women and small girls.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the problems we identified in the bill was the short title, which refers to cultural practices. The problem is that one in every three women is a victim of violence or sexual violence in Canada, no matter their background or whatever cultural definition the government has in mind when it uses the word “cultural”.

My only question is this. Why add this word if we know that one in every three women is a victim of violence or sexual violence? Why identify only cultural violence? Violence is a systemic problem in our society, so why not target violence against women? What is the purpose of using the word “cultural”?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the word “cultural” is clearly meant to include all cultures where some of these issues are actually fairly common practice.

The witnesses who testified before the committee clearly said on the record that some of these issues are deeply rooted in their particular culture, and their testimony is there for anybody who cares to read the testimony of those who appeared before the committee that has debated and argued this particular piece of legislation. It does not make sense to ignore the obvious, while it does not do any harm to put it in.

These kinds of practices, we clearly know, are rooted in some cultures. We have not identified a particular culture, in order to be as tolerant as possible when it comes to this, but we cannot not call a spade a spade either when it comes to these particular issues.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on the member's answer. He said it is there and it is part of cultures and so forth and it applies to all cultures.

I am wondering why he would not make it even more profound in terms of saying, “culture, religions, et cetera”. Why just limit it to culture?

Surely to goodness the member can recognize that just dropping that word does not do anything in terms of taking away from the legislation itself. It is the word that has offended many. Why would the government be so persistent in accepting and keeping the word when, in fact, whether the word is there or not has absolutely no impact on the legislation?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there we go again, seeing the Liberals standing up for the rights of the accused rather than the rights of the victims by trying to acknowledge that the perpetrators of these cultural practices, these barbaric practices, somehow need their feelings to be taken into consideration when they have done terrible and heinous things to members of their own family, to women, or to girls.

Canadians can trust that only a Conservative government will actually stand up for the rights of victims in this country and put the rights of those victims first.

None of the victims that have testified before the committee had any problem with the words “barbaric cultural practices”.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

Unfortunately, we completely disagree with several of his principles. My colleague said that the Conservatives were standing up for victims, when we see that, in a number of respects, they have no regard for victims, particularly for the aboriginal women who have been going missing for years. The government is doing absolutely nothing for these women who are the victims of violence and who have been going missing. The Conservatives are all about smoke and mirrors. This bill, which is supposed to help combat violence against women, is another example of this. There are a number of laws in place to protect women, yet the Conservatives are introducing dangerous measures that could have the opposite effect and that will not help victims.

Why is the government saying that it wants to help victims when it has no consideration for the aboriginal women in our country? Why does it not take measures that could help those women deal with the violence they are facing?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

There we go again, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member has no questions about the bill, which means that he has to ask a question about something else, which means he is in support of the bill, even though he will probably be forced to vote against it, according to his own party lines. He is trying to deflect the question, but I will be happy to address it.

There are a lot of legal changes that would be made in this particular bill. He says there are some things that already protect women. Of course there are, but there is no age of marriage law in Canada, so we would be changing that. There needs to be clarification on the provocation clauses, and we would be amending them. These are things that need to be amended and updated from time to time.

When it comes to missing and murdered aboriginal women, I proudly represent the community of Maskwacis in my constituency of Wetaskiwin, which has some 12,000 Cree first nations people, all very good, hard-working people who want the same things, a good quality of life, a safe place to raise their families and children. They want jobs and economic opportunities, but they also know, and the police will show this, that all the records and the information we have show that the majority of aboriginal women go missing at the hands of their spouses or partners, just as it is for any woman of any other ethnic origin in Canada.

We already know this. The time for action is now. We can do something now by passing the bill or we can follow the NDP's lead, which is to dither and delay and not take action on these measures.