Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Minister.
As you know, we support the bill, a priori. Unfortunately, you haven't given us much information. Everyone wants to protect young people from sexual exploitation. However, I would like to get a little more information from you.
First of all, how many offences are we talking about? How many charges of sexual exploitation involving young persons have been laid by law enforcement officials in recent years?
Secondly, you have neither confirmed nor denied the numbers quoted by our colleague Mr. Comartin. How many young persons are targeted by this bill? I know we're talking about approximate numbers, but can you confirm, or deny, the claim that 125,000 young persons will be affected by the bill?
Thirdly, the most important element is setting an age limit. What were the reason for selecting this particular age? Some people feel that it would be more effective if judges could determine the exploitative nature of the relationship and that less relevance should be assigned to age. How do you respond to that? Why was the age set at 16 years, and not at 17 or at some other number?