Your Honour, I rise today with respect to addressing debate around legislation that seeks to amend the name of the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act. The intended consequence of the bill before this chamber would see the removal of the act's short title. Our colleague the Honourable Senator Jaffer, in proposing this legislative remedy, informed this chamber that the essence of her concerns related to the pairing of the words "barbaric" and "cultural." She put forth the thesis that pairing these terms assailed a cultural group at large rather than the individuals committing such acts. Senator Jaffer distilled the issue very well when she made this fundamental observation:

. . . we can call terrorists barbaric, we can call violence barbaric, but we cannot call cultures barbaric.

Honourable senators, I support each of the original bill's provisions. I continue to support its intent to affirm our Canadian values and our morals: the equality of women in our society, the belief in marriage between only two people and based on mutual consent, and the determination to identify and deal with any practice or act our society deems barbaric or not reflective of Canada's social fabric.

We do not support forced marriages; we do not tolerate polygamy. We do support minimum age requirements for marriage. We affirm the requirements for free and enlightened consent by both parties regarding marriage in this country. I believe honourable senators will agree that, upon reflection, the legislation as passed was the right bill, containing the right provisions, introduced, studied and debated and passed in the right season.

Colleagues, we're living in a rapidly changing world where international and global circumstances are reshaping our realities, realigning our foreign policy and reconfiguring our communities. As we open our doors to those forced to contend with all manner of barbaric practices and treatments in the face of unmitigated turmoil, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, we welcome and embrace those who must flee from their homes into our society. We do so in tacit recognition that our freedom didn't happen by accident or without great cost. We here in Canada establish and reaffirm our values from the outset, while setting a clear expectation that they are to be accepted and guarded by citizens, both old and new, by those born here through family or born here by tragic circumstance. We are a multicultural society, but we must never mistake embracing multiculturalism as an excuse for allowing behaviours, acts or attitudes that seek to undermine our Canadian values and morals.

We achieve this with the passage of Bill S-7, but we achieve even more if we take steps to better position and, in this instance, to better communicate the intent of our laws, especially when they're of such importance and consequence to new Canadians.

In discussion with members of the community over the past months, many have expressed their support for Bill S-7 and the important issues that it addresses. However, at the same time, they also expressed serious concerns with regard to its short title.

Honourable senators, I support this act to amend the short title of Bill S-7. I applaud and support the efforts of our colleague the Honourable Senator Jaffer in this regard, and I would urge you to support the removal of the short title of this bill.

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