moved:
That the House call on the government to take action to prevent forced marriages and any kind of non-consensual sponsorship in the immigration system by amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations so as to: (a) ban the use of proxy, telephone, and fax marriages as a means to spousal sponsorship; (b) disallow explicitly, in section 5, the use of proxy, telephone and fax marriages for the purpose of immigration; and (c) set out administrative measures that communicate clearly to visa officers how to detect a proxy, telephone or fax marriage.
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House today to introduce my motion, which pertains to telephone, fax, Internet or proxy marriages; specifically, as they relate to immigration to Canada.
The issue is both timely, I would say urgent, in fact, as well as deeply troubling. My motion is related to forced marriages, in that the sad truth is that these practices can be used to force individuals, usually women and girls, into non-consensual marriages.
Allow me to elaborate on the issue that I am bringing forward today.
A marriage by proxy is one where one or even both participants are not present at the ceremony and are represented by another person. Sometimes, these marriages are conducted via telephone, the Internet, or even by fax. Some visa offices around the world encounter marriages by proxy on a regular basis, as it is a cultural practice in some parts of the world. Rest assured, such marriages are not legally recognized when performed in Canada.
They are currently recognized by Canadian immigration law, however, when conducted outside of Canada. I am not telling members that all of these arrangements are invalid. Simply put, my motion asks the government to make the necessary regulation changes to disallow telephone, fax, Internet or proxy marriages for the purpose of immigration, and in particular, spousal sponsorship.
I am sure we all would agree it is essential to protect Canadians, as well as those who dream of a new life in Canada. That is why we must do whatever we can to strengthen the protection of vulnerable women in Canada and to support the rights of immigrant and newcomer women in the strongest possible way. The motion we are debating today would provide that strong protection.
Now, let me be clear. The motion is not an indictment of cultural practices related to arranged marriages. An arranged marriage is a marriage in which families take a leading role, but both parties have the free will to accept or decline the arrangement. What we are debating today is the issue of forced marriages, whereby one or more parties to the marriage have not given their consent.
However, the focus of the motion is the increasing concern that some marriages by telephone, fax, Internet or proxy can make it easier for someone to be forced into a marriage to which they do not consent. Indeed, as I have stated, there have been reports of spousal sponsorship cases that were, in fact, cases of forced marriages facilitated by proxy. The effects on the victims are devastating and far-reaching as it also impacts children and communities.
Unfortunately, violence against women and girls continues to affect tens of thousands each year and harmful cultural practices, such as forced marriage, still exist as a reality for some women and girls. Men and boys can also be victims, but women and girls are particularly vulnerable. As a member of the status of women committee, these issues of violence against women and girls are top of mind for me.
However, forced marriages also have an impact upon the integrity of our immigration system, which is the focus of the regulation change required to solve this problem. I can think of at least two possible scenarios that illustrate this point.
The first involves a Canadian or a permanent resident being forced to marry a foreign national and then being compelled to bring that person and their dependants to Canada through family sponsorship. For example, let us say a young woman is pressured by her family, or others, to marry a foreign national so that her sponsored spouse can then come to Canada and bring with him any dependants.
The second is the possible situation of a Canadian or a permanent resident forcing a foreign national into marriage and then compelling that person to come to Canada as their sponsored spouse. In this scenario, a woman abroad could be forced against her will to marry a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident and then be compelled to come to Canada as a sponsored spouse.
In both of these situations, the marriage can take place by proxy, telephone, fax or the Internet and then can be used as a basis upon which to apply to immigrate to Canada. This is not how Canada's spousal sponsorship is intended to work, nor should it be allowed in other immigration streams that support keeping families together through the migration process. These scenarios not only underscore our responsibility as legislators to ensure that we uphold and strengthen the protections for vulnerable women, they also bring home our responsibility to protect our immigration system from abuse.
It is time to close this loophole.
Central to our country's success, prosperity, and social harmony is the fact that we are united as Canadian citizens not by shared ancestry but by a pledge of mutual responsibility and a shared commitment to values and traditions rooted in our history. As the daughter of immigrants myself, and therefore as a first-generation Canadian, these values are central to my personal beliefs, and I will work to protect them as a Canadian and as a parliamentarian. This includes ensuring that everyone who interacts with our immigration system is treated fairly and that we do everything we can to help people successfully integrate as citizens of our country, regardless of their country of origin, their ethnic heritage, their economic circumstance, or their gender.
While not all telephone, fax, Internet, or proxy marriages are forced, it is clear from the information received by visa officers in Canada's regional offices that some most certainly are. It is not an exaggeration to characterize forced marriage as a form of family violence. It is an extremely harmful practice that must not be tolerated.
To protect the integrity of our immigration system and to protect those who might be victimized by harmful practices, the government has made it much harder for people convicted of crimes that result in bodily harm against members of their families, or other particularly violent offences, to sponsor any family-class member to come to Canada. These are the kinds of actions the Government of Canada has taken recently to address family violence in the context of immigration.
As members can see, family violence is not tolerated in Canada under any circumstance, and individuals who do not respect Canadian law and commit serious crimes should not benefit from the privilege of sponsorship.
Millions of girls and women continue to be brutalized by violence, including through the inhumane practice of early and forced marriage. Sometimes these are conducted by telephone, fax, Internet, or proxy. As promised in last year's Speech from the Throne, this government will take steps to ensure that it does not occur on Canadian soil.
Last, I want to recommend to the government one specific exemption to any new regulation that would be implemented. That is for members of the Canadian Armed Forces in active military service. These dedicated brave men and women should be exempted from any new regulations disallowing telephone, fax, Internet, or proxy marriages for the purposes of immigration.
I want to let members know that telephone, fax, Internet, and proxy marriages do facilitate non-bona fide marriages and may facilitate forced marriages as well. The regulation change my motion asks of government would protect women, girls, and vulnerable people as well as protect Canada's immigration system from abuse. I ask that all members of this House support this fair, reasonable, and common-sense motion.
