SoVote

Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace River—Westlock, CPC)

May/9/23 10:02:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today, I have one petition to present. It is a petition on behalf of Canadians from across the country who are concerned about the risk of violence against women, particularly when they are pregnant. Increasingly, the injury or death of preborn children as victims of crime is not established in Canadian law as a risk factor. Folks are calling for Canada, this Parliament, to consider that to be an aggravating circumstance in sentencing under the Criminal Code of Canada. Currently, Canada has no abortion law and this legal void is so extreme that we do not even recognize preborn children as victims of violent crime. Justice requires that an attacker who abuses a pregnant woman and her preborn children be sentenced accordingly and that the sentence should match the crime. The people who have signed this petition are calling on the House of Commons to legislate the abuse of pregnant women and inflicting harm on a preborn child as an aggravating circumstance for sentencing under the Criminal Code.

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Context: House Hansard - 193 - May/9/23

Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP)

May/9/23 7:53:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have heard today, in the many interventions, of the technical aspects of this bill, the rights of hunters and farmers, the use of the tools and the specifics about the guns, but I do not think we have heard enough about the victims of gun violence. I am somebody who has had the heartbreak and tragedy of having attended funerals for gun violence. I think about Marley Rowe in 2014, and I think about the mass shooting that happened more recently in Vaughan, where my dear friend Doreen Di Nino was one of the lone survivors. I wonder if the hon. member could reflect and re-centre the impact of gun violence on victims and on the work that he would wish to share for the benefit of this debate on the consultations that he has had with victims of gun violence. This intervention seeks to reduce the circulation of guns, introduce some kind of manufacturing accountability to tackle this new phenomenon of ghost guns and the idea that anybody at home with a 3-D printer can manufacture their own type of weapons. Could the hon. member just re-centre on the victims and talk about the ways this would hopefully help offset future tragedies?

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Context: House Hansard - 193 - May/9/23

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

May/9/23 11:06:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate that my colleague put an emphasis on the reason why the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was threatened. He was threatened because of his leadership in standing with victims of genocide. Through the motion that he put forward, the motion that was adopted unanimously, though with cabinet abstaining, Canada's legislature was the first in the world, but it started a global movement of other legislatures recognizing the Uyghur genocide. This was a consequential moment of leadership for that member and this Parliament, in spite of the inaction of the government. The threats this member has faced underlines just how consequential that moment was. I want to thank the member for raising that issue and just invite her to add additional measures, perhaps, that the House needs to take and the government needs to take, to stand with the Uyghur people. The House has spoken on this multiple times, but the government has been far behind.

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