Mr. Speaker, it is appropriate that I rise in the House today with great disappointment to debate Bill S-7 , which is offensively called a zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act.

Yesterday, the government members of the House had the opportunity to vote to create a national action plan to end violence against women, and all but one chose to vote against a plan that would genuinely work to end violence against women. Instead, here we are faced with Bill S-7 , which will likely pass and will likely inflict more violence on women.

I would like to state for the record that the crimes the government would see as “barbaric cultural practices” are found in all cultural groups and among all communities. Gender-based violence includes what the Conservatives like to call “honour killings”, forced marriages, and polygamy, and all of these can be found in white, Christian homes that have been in Canada since Confederation.

What does serve to make immigrant and refugee women more vulnerable in Canada is a culture that marginalizes them, a society that racializes and stereotypes them and a political climate that places systemic barriers between them and their ability to claim the rights to which they are entitled.

Bill S-7 works to fan the flames of the Islamophobic and racist stigma that immigrant women face. It names problems that all women face as “cultural” and then, in practice, it clamps down on immigration policy that is already discriminating against refugees and immigrants from South Asian, Arab, and African states.

I, alongside my feminist colleagues from all regions, are sick and tired of having to battle against xenophobic, misogynistic legislation that masquerades as feminism in Parliament.

Alia Hogben, the executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, came to testify at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women this year when we were studying violence against women. There she said:

lt is dehumanizing and degrading to label certain forms of violence as barbaric when all of it is so. Why are some politicians labelling some practices as barbaric and linking it with immigrants only? Polygamy, femicide, and forced marriages are all present in our Canadian society with one significant example of the Mormon community of Bountiful, which has been practising all of these since the 1950s. Why the blame and targeting of immigrants or visible minority groups?

Throughout my mandate as the critic for the status of women, I worked closely with a brilliant lawyer and advocate from the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario. Deepa Mattoo has taken it upon herself to do some of the most extensive research on early and forced marriage that we have in Canada. Therefore, she is an expert on the crimes that the bill claims to address. She stands in fervent opposition to it, as do the vast majority of the advocates, lawyers, and community representatives who actually work with the victims of gender-based violence. This is what Deepa Mattoo has to say about Bill S-7 's offensive short title:

Giving it a shock factor name will not eliminate the issue. Instead it will force perpetrators to take this underground, ensuring the victims and potential victims are isolated from any resources. This causes a greater risk to their safety, not to mention their emotional and mental well-being.

At its core, Bill S-7 would create dangerous conditions for women who may indeed be in a vulnerable situation. However, instead of empowering these women and girls with the culturally appropriate education, tools, and services they need to claim their rights, Bill S-7 would see them deported or denied entry into Canada. What is incredibly threatening about the language of the bill is that it says that Canada can deny entry or deport people “if they are or will be practising polygamy”. This provision is problematic on every level. How can anyone deny immigration status to someone based on the suspicion that they will practise polygamy in the future? How can we start criminalizing individuals based on crimes we fear they might commit in the future? Last I checked, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is not empowered with telepathic powers.

The government has already passed legislation that gives tremendous powers to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, so transparency in the immigration and refugee system in our country barely exists at all anymore.

The NDP has repeatedly pointed out that making an individual's refugee status entirely contingent upon the discretion of the minister contravenes international human rights conventions. The government is now writing immigration law that would be adjudicated only by the discretion of the minister and would allow us to discriminate based on the suspicion of future crimes or the marriage practices of one's relatives or the practices of the community one comes from.

Dr. Hannana Siddiqui, from Southall Black Sisters in the U.K., said:

...the thing is deportation has always been a problem. It's not just for the man; it's for the women and the children. It doesn't resolve the problem of polygamy itself. It just creates discrimination, alienation and mistrust within minority communities.

I think you have to look at other ways of trying to resolve the problem.

When will this government understand? Deportation is never a solution to violence against women. When immigrant and refugee women are facing gender-based violence, the threat of deportation for themselves, their children, or their family will work to keep them in a violent domestic situation.

I would like to end my speech by talking in positive terms about what the Conservatives can do right now to substantially address violence against women.

First, they can listen to women themselves who have been the victims of violence. Bill S-7, along with almost all the legislation the government passes under the auspices of saving women, is paternalistic and does not benefit from any form of adequate consultation with the communities it would affect.

Second, they can listen to the experts, the advocates and service providers who are telling them that this bill is a terrible way to address violence against women and would likely create more violence in women's lives.

Third, they can take up the content of my Motion No. 444, which was in front of us yesterday, to create with all due haste a national action plan to end violence against women. This national action plan is what the advocates, experts, and service providers are asking for. This is what women themselves are asking for.

Fourth and finally, they can make substantive immigration reform that would ensure that women are never subject to deportation, detention, or removal if they are victims of violence or fear violence.

We must work to keep families together. We must inform women of their rights. We must create culturally appropriate services and shelters. We must end the threat of random, unfounded deportations, and we must work as a society and as a government to counteract racism and stigma.

This is what we can do.

Niki Ashton

$666,183.00