Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak today about unintended consequences. As we look at the bill, we think about the intended consequences, but I want to talk about the unintended consequences.

Intention is important. If we look at the intention of the bill, we look at the short title of the bill, the zero tolerance for barbaric cultural practices act. That is offensive. I am not going to get into how offensive it is. There is the fact that it is xenophobic, that it is politicizing the issue of gender-based violence, and that it is reinforcing prejudices and stereotypes we have about certain cultural groups.

However, if we look at the intention of the bill, I would think the intention is to prohibit certain acts, such as forced marriage and polygamy. Maybe some of those are laudable goals, but then we have to open the legislation and read it and figure out if the intention would be met. It may be or may not be, but what are some of the unintended consequences, because that is equally important. We do not want to do things that we did not intend to do. There are many unintentional consequences in the bill that would actually victimize or re-victimize women, in particular, and children.

Some of the unintentional consequences are that we could criminalize the victims of polygamy. We could criminalize them, and that could lead to the deportation of children. Is that our intention? Is it our intention to criminalize victims? The bill could lead to the separation of families. It would further victimize women. I do not think those are intended consequences, but that is what the consequences of the bill would be.

Imagine being in the position of being forced into marriage. This is a woman who does not have control over her life, a woman who is a victim of family pressure, who is the victim of family control and community pressure and control. If we intend to end that practice, if we intend to help that woman, what would we do? We would think about sensible, reasonable policy responses. What is the policy response to end a practice like that? We would want to make it as easy as possible for women to come forward. We would get rid of all those barriers to prevent them from keeping it secret and to prevent these practices from going underground. We would want to make it as easy as possible for women to come forward and as easy as possible for friends or family members of that woman to come forward and go to the authorities.

If we are looking at a reasonable and sensible policy response, we would also want to reach out to certain communities to raise awareness of forced marriages, to reach out to service providers and government officials who might actually be called upon to assist in the prevention of forced marriages. That is a reasonable policy response. Let us make it easy for those government officials or those community leaders to come forward. A reasonable policy response would be to make it obvious that there are supports in place for these women if they do come forward and that we will help them. We do not want to make things worse, but we would with the bill, because it has so many unintended consequences.

The bill makes no provision to allow women who are conditional permanent residents to remain in Canada if their polygamist partner is deported, so why would they come forward? Why would they come forward, knowing they that they will be deported? UNICEF has talked about the fact that the bill would impose criminal sanctions against minors who attend or celebrate or help organize a forced marriage. It is incredible to think that they would be impacted with that kind of criminal record.

Because some of these penalties include criminalization, some women and children are not going to want to come forward. Why would they come forward when they would be at risk of seeing their parents end up with a criminal record, or their spouse, or other family members, people from their community? How do they come forward knowing that someone is going to be charged? They should be able to come forward to get out of a situation if that is what they need to do. However, this bill does not have any of those supports we are talking about. All it would do is drive these practices underground.

Imagine a women in a forced marriage. She is under the control of her family or her husband, and she is without a voice. She wants to leave, but if she does, she may be deported. I cannot imagine having to make that choice. Would I live with the violence and continue to live in that situation?

The parliamentary secretary spoke earlier about having travelled around the world and seeing terrible conditions in other countries, terrible situations for women. Is that what we are doing here, risking these women being sent back to those conditions? That is the risk they are going to take if they come forward. They could see their parents end up with a criminal record. What woman is going to come forward?

If we are looking at sensible, reasonable policy responses to this problem, I think it makes sense to look at what other countries are doing. Denmark, as members have probably heard, actually tried something along these lines. We should learn from their record and learn about what is happening.

In 2008, Denmark actually made it a criminal offence to force anyone to marry, but six years later, no one has been charged under this law. That is relevant.

Even more relevant, we have heard from the head of the National Organization for Women's Shelters. She thinks that not only has the law not had any impact on protecting young women from being forced into marriage but that it may have backfired and is actually driving the problem underground.

A reasonable policy response is to make it clear to women that we will be there to help them and we will support them, not that there will be criminal charges, not that there will be deportation.

We can look at other countries as well. I know that some of my colleagues have talked about the situation in the United Kingdom. If we are making legal changes, if we are looking to enact legal changes, we have to have those supports in place as well.

We have had testimony. We have had experts come forward to say that any legal challenge has to go hand in hand with more funding for women's organizations, which are really on the front lines providing services to isolated and stigmatized victims to help them navigate the criminal justice system and the civil justice system and to help them access safe housing and welfare support. All of those things are needed if we are going to enact legal changes.

Unfortunately, this bill is another example of a pattern of the Conservatives. They want desperately to have their tough-on-crime buttons they can wear: “We are tough on crime and we stand up for victims”. They love this narrative. They love the narrative so much that they do not actually care if they make it tougher for victims.

What is the pattern I am talking about? In 2012, we had new measures introduced to crack down on marriage fraud, including the requirement for a sponsored spouse to live with the sponsor for two years or face deportation and possible criminal charges. I remember that debate. I remember the fact that the NDP talked about this leaving women vulnerable to abuse. Why would women come forward when the law says that they have to stay with that person for two years or lose permanent residency? Why would they come forward?

We have seen private member's bills that talk about fact sponsorship or proxy sponsorship for marriages, but that is not about forced marriages. The people using that form of transmission are really refugees, by and large. By cutting off that access, we are limiting family reunification. That is an unintended consequence. We need to think long and hard about what these kinds of bills will do and the fact that they re-victimize victims.

I will finish up with the fact that I heard our Minister of National Defence, the former minister of citizenship, and multiculturalism, saying that sometimes we need to act with legislation.

Maybe during the question and answer period I will have the opportunity to list some of the legislation, because we have the legislation in place we need. The Criminal Code is fulsome. It does not have the unintended consequences we are talking about here. It gets to the root of the problem.

There is no way I can support this bill in good conscience.

Megan Leslie

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