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But Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander says the bill is both necessary and prudent as it would make it possible for perpetrators of forced marriage and subsequent sexual assault eligible for life sentences. In an interview with National Post Radio earlier this week, he said the bill “is setting the net wider for those who are involved.” It’s currently not a crime to facilitate a forced marriage, whether as a parent, friend or broker, and this bill would make it one.

“All of this is urgent and overdue,” Alexander said, adding it’s about “protecting those women and girls who are victims of those crimes.”

He said it’s also about making polygamy a reason an immigrant would be inadmissible to Canada.

He said the U.K. has led on the forced marriages, which “leads to terrible consequences, some of the worst forms of violence, for a lifetime: rape, intimidation, other forms of physical abuse, the mental anguish.”

All those practices — forced marriage, honour-based violence and polygamy — “have no place in Canada,” Alexander said.

Unicef has supported the bill for standardizing the age of marriage, which currently varies across the country. But it has also called for the word “barbaric” to be removed from the title and other changes made. The bill, which has been passed by Parliament, has not been substantively amended.

In 2013, the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario released a report detailing 219 cases of forced marriage between 2010 and its release. Alexander said that’s just a snapshot and there are likely hundreds of more victims in Canada.