Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a habit the current government has of not paying attention to the criminal provisions that already exist in the Canadian Criminal Code across a broad range of issues. The Conservatives put forth legislation in this House that duplicates existing provisions, as though these things are not already taken care of. What is most problematic is not just the reflex to criminalization but the insensitivity to the fact that when they deal with matters of family and social relations through criminalization or immigration only, they are inevitably catching in their web family issues and are doing harm to families.
At committee, there were experts talking about this issue. For example, Dr. Hannana Siddiqui, head of policy and research at Southall Black Sisters in London, the United Kingdom, said:
Anything that you introduce around immigration is not going to affect just the perpetrator but the whole family—the women and children in that polygamous relationship; and that can have a detrimental effect on them as well.
According to Avvy Go, director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, the bill seeks to deport people who are engaged in polygamy, and that would include the very women the government claims to be trying to protect. These are the unintended consequences and the insensitivities I talked about in my speech.