Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak on a bill, the title of which I find quite abhorrent, the title being zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices. I do not know when this kind of language started to enter the House when we talk about legislation that is going to impact the lives of many people.
Let me first say that nobody on this side or that side of the House will tolerate any barbaric practices, but to say that barbaric practices are embedded in one culture or the other seems a little bizarre to me and, in the present context, seems to be very inflammatory in light of the comments made by backbenchers, the Prime Minister, and other people.
I want to take the tone down, because I take this issue very seriously. Gender-based violence is a serious issue, and all of us know there is enough research to show that it crosses all social, ethnic, and cultural boundaries. We always excuse it when we put the word “cultural” in front of it, that somehow it only happens in other countries and not across our communities.
I also want to say at this stage that it seems a bit strange to me that I have got up to speak on this bill without mentioning something significant that happened in my riding over the last 48 hours. There have been five shootings in my riding in recent hours. The RCMP has brought in extra police, who are very working very hard, and the community is very worried. When I look at the context, I keep thinking there are so many things we should be addressing right now in this country. My heart goes out to all those in my community who are worried, and I thank the members of the RCMP who are putting their lives at risk in order to make our communities safe right now.
There is a link with what I am talking about happening in Surrey and this bill, and it is called resources. Many times I have stood in the House and asked for additional resources for the City of Surrey so it can get the additional policing it needs, because it has incredibly low ratios. It is those kinds of resources that help with preventive work and stop the shootings that have been taking place over the last 48 to 72 hours.
I want to talk about domestic violence. First, let me assure everybody across the aisle, before anybody decides to point fingers—because I have experienced that before—that there is no one on this side of the House who supports gender-based violence, no matter which cultural group one may belong to. There is no one on this side of the House who supports child or forced marriages, and there is no one on this side of the House who supports polygamy.
Now that I have put those issues out there, I am going to tackle them one at a time. When it comes to domestic violence, we know that we have laws right now, and if passing one more law, saying all domestic violence shall end, would actually eradicate it, I think all of us would be rushing to vote for it.
We have laws already, but I would say what is lacking now are resources and enforcement. I say resources because we know that if we want victims to come forward, we have to provide them with a support system, and this bill would not do that. As a matter of fact, this bill could have the collateral damage—language my colleagues across the way sometimes use—of making victims go underground and not speak up because they know that if they speak up, either the victims or their children could be deported and criminalized.
Once again, one thing I know as a teacher and counsellor is that, if we really want to talk about domestic violence and to end gender-based violence, it starts with education, information, and with having laws that we actually enforce, but for that we need people to come forward with evidence. We need to put a support system in place so that the victims, the women and the children, have safety and security while they are going through the system and tackling the abuse that is going on at home.
Also it is also very offensive to see that word. Of course any kind of domestic violence is barbaric. However, to relate it to culture is going over the top and is the kind of politics I have been hearing a lot about, whether it is talking about brownies and whities, or brandishing all Muslims across the globe as being anti-women, or the extreme reach of Bill C-51, or not even allowing the Privacy Commissioner to give evidence because it might not agree with my colleagues across the way.
We already have laws and if they need to be tightened up, that is where the focus should be. If they need to be resourced, that is where my colleagues should be bringing forward legislation, if we really want to tackle gender-based violence. It is my understanding that we already have laws to prevent forced marriages and child marriages. There is an age of consent before the age of 16, and surely we do not have laws that put up with people forcing themselves on minors. We have legislation like that. Once again, this is another one of those window-dressing bills to appeal to a base, where they believe they can collect millions of dollars from hard-working Canadians.
The other issue I want to tackle is the issue of polygamy. Mr. Speaker, forgive me if I do not have this right and I am sure you will correct me if I do not, but it is my understanding that in Canada, we actually have laws that prevent people from being married to more than one person at a time. This legislation is not for what happens in other countries; it is about what happens within Canada, a Canadian law to apply to those living in Canada.
We live in a country where people get married, the marriages do not work out, and they end up getting divorced. We are not saying they do not get married again, but under Canadian law we can have only one wife at a time. I have a very vivid memory of this because, in the case in B.C. over Bountiful, I was one of the witnesses. It shocked me when I was reading the bill that we have a government that believes polygamy is okay in Canada. That is why Conservatives are bringing the bill forward. This is absolute nonsense. We do not have polygamy in our country. If people want to get married again because a marriage does not work out, that is okay, but it is one marriage at a time.
We already have laws against polygamy, so really what is the bill all about? Once again, what the Conservatives want to achieve in the bill could have been done in other ways, but it would not have given them the sound bites they needed to go to the media and say, “We are against barbaric cultural practices”. We on this side are against barbaric practices, period, without any modifiers and without any excuses.
