Justice Committee on March 27th, 2007

[Kaj Hasselriis]

There is the legal issues committee, which has as its members lawyers and law professors and other legal professionals across Canada. They make recommendations to the board, and then the 12-member national board makes decisions on behalf of the membership of Egale.

Working as the executive director of Egale, I can tell you that Egale is very engaged with its membership across Canada. Members are calling us every day. We are often sending them newsletters. We have an active website. We have a listserv. Members are free to give their opinions all the time, and believe me, they do. So we get input all the time on different cases.

Actually, at our last national board meeting a couple of weeks ago, we looked again at this issue and talked about it prior to our coming to present our statements to you.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

And the board agreed with this position?

[Kaj Hasselriis]

Yes, exactly.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

I have a similar question for Kim.

[Kim Thomas, Director of Programs, Canadian AIDS Society]

The Canadian AIDS Society is a coalition of 125 community-based HIV/AIDS organizations that are working on the front lines of responding. Many of them do in fact serve youth through prevention and provide services for youth who are living with HIV/AIDS.

In terms of how our policy is built, we have several bodies that assist in that. One, of course, is the board of directors. On our board of directors, we have a youth seat designated for a youth living with HIV/AIDS. This representative is guided by a steering committee made up of representatives from across Canada, a standing committee that helps him to define what types of policies and responses are required on issues that affect youth when it comes to HIV/AIDS.

As well, the board of directors has a committee that looks at all of our policy positions and helps guide the staff in developing the statements themselves. All of our position statements are in fact passed by the board of directors, and there are records of those in our board minutes, which are of course available publicly.

As well as representing a community-based movement, we have a body called the People Living with HIV/AIDS Forum, which meets annually. Within this forum, we attempt to represent people from many different lived realities in Canada, including youth. That body has a resolution process that helps us to set the policy priorities over the course of the years. The issue of youth prevention has come up at that forum and has been put forward for the board to address also.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Okay. I don't have much time, but just quickly, I assume that the youth steering committee and your board are against this bill.

[Kim Thomas]

Yes.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Okay.

Perhaps it'll take the rest of my time, but I'll just give Donny a chance--I don't think he's had a chance to speak yet--to say whether or not he's against this bill. And if you're for passing this bill, maybe you could explain why in relation to your own experiences.

[Donny Melanson, Member, Vancouver, Motivated Young People for a Strong Canada]

Yes, thank you very much for asking me that question. I'm definitely not against it. I'm definitely for passing the bill.

The bottom line is that there's a very real injustice unfolding in our generation right now with youth exploitation, and it even goes deeper than that into slavery--you could call it modern-day slavery if you want.

Based on my own experience, a lot of the reasons why young women and boys are exploited is abuse. All abuse is emotional, whether it's physical, mental, spiritual, social, whatever.

In my case, having been abused at the age of 13 by two friends fuelled my addiction. The addiction just pushed down the shame and the guilt, and as a result I ended up in downtown Toronto at a place called Boystown, and I was introduced to a way and a means of making money at a very young age to support my drug habit. Thus, this sick cycle began of pushing down the shame and guilt and then selling my body to men in order to continue not to feel.

I believe we need to start respecting each other as brothers and sisters and not look at each other as objects of affection, not look to each other to impress one another or to have power and control over one another. That's where this injustice stems from; it's this mentality in our society today that says I have one over you.

It's all around us, really. I don't think any of us are blind to it and I think we really need to open our eyes and see that a good place to begin is to raise the age of consent.

Everyone else has made really good points. What follows after that is education and awareness, but we need to start somewhere. You can't keep passing the ball.

That's all I have to say for now. Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Bagnell. That was a good question.

Mr. Melanson, I know it's tough to be able to articulate some things, as you have here, so we thank you for making that effort.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to start by putting my questions to Ms. Roy and Ms. Tremblay. I was very interested by your evidence. You're pushing us to think a little beyond the law as such, that is to say to think about the whole range of values and how we can use justice to advocate more equal relations among individuals.

You aren't that much in favour of the bill because you feel it skips an important aspect.

Strictly from the point of view of what we can do within the bill that is before us, how should we attack the entire issue of so-called exploitative relations? This distinction has been made in the bill. Do you think we shouldn't make it? Do you think it's a definition? What changes would you like concerning this concept of exploitative relations, which, as presented, refers to pornography and prostitution?

[Michèle Roy]

It is always complicated, in a legal context, to change a bill or a specific section of an act without providing it with a framework as part of another initiative. There are always constraints. You can't change the age of consent without integrating it in a more comprehensive change in terms of what we want to promote as a society and the way we will subsequently set that down in various acts.

It's difficult for you to say that we should specifically delete such and such a line and add another in this bill. It's hard to cut it in that way because, ultimately, the question is whether this bill will really make it possible to achieve the objective we claim to have, that is to say to protect young people from sexual exploitation committed by persons, either through the Internet or otherwise, by adults who try to impose sexual relations on them. It is difficult to know whether we are for or against it because the question we especially ask ourselves is whether the objective pursued will be achieved. Will it really provide protection?

I think we have to ensure that all women and girls in our society have the right to say no, and to convince all men and boys that, when someone says no, it means no. Those are the current issues. In some cases, boys don't respect a refusal, regardless of the way it is expressed, and women and girls do not recognize that they have a right to say no, in certain circumstances.

There are some young people who agree to have sexual relations out of choice, will, love or desire. That is not the problem. The problem is that many young people currently do it for all kinds of false reasons, not to mention the pressure that is put on them to prove their notoriety, to look for love, to escape poverty, to buy drugs, and so on. As the gentleman said, these are relationships of inequality and abuse of power. That's the problem.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

All right.

[Michèle Roy]

But I find it hard to tell you to delete part of the clause.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Roy.

I'd like to continue with a second question, with your permission. This is for the people from Égale Canada or the Canadian AIDS Society.

I think section 159 has to be amended. It seems clear to me that there is no reason for this type of distinction.

At the same time, we had a favourable prejudice. I'm very pleased with Ms. Roy's testimony because she made us understand that our effort is limited; I'm aware of that. Let's take a 50-year-old person who has a relationship with a 14-year-old. Even if it is not exploitative, should we encourage that in our society? The question arises.

You seem to say that raising the age of consent will mean that people will be less inclined—that's somewhat the sense of the testimony you gave—to look for information and that there will be harmful effects in the schools.

Can you tell us a little more about that? The link with raising the age of consent is not clear.

I don't know who wants to be the first person to answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Please go ahead.

[Andrea Cohen]

Thank you.

I should start by saying, actually, that the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health is not for this legislation. We believe it's a rather crude instrument to deal with a pretty complex issue, which human sexual behaviour is, particularly around youth.

Actually, we lack any kind of framework in Canada around sexual health and rights. In the early nineties, the government commissioned a national framework on sexual and reproductive health, and it was never implemented. Some of the things in that framework guaranteed rights of access to health care and education, and guaranteed things around issues of confidentiality, and really dealt with the whole issue of sexuality, particularly for youth, in a way that was thoughtful, in a way that was based on evidence and best practice and what works, and in a way that was fair and didn't discriminate against certain types of sexual activity.

So today we've picked the three most important things that we think will improve this particular legislation going forward. Our members provide both health care and education to youth and parents across the country, and our members have told us that they are very concerned, in the way this legislation is currently written, that youth are already skittish about seeking out information and seeking out health care, and any risk to their confidentiality and anything that puts up that kind of barrier will actually compromise their health and their decision-making.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Ms. Thomas.

[Kim Thomas]

I want to respond to Mr. Ménard's question around education and the state of education in schools right now.

Currently 16 is the age at which youth are allowed to drop out of high school in all provinces except New Brunswick. I'm sure people in Ontario are aware that there is some discussion about changes to that in Ontario as well. But that creates a problem, because it tends to be youth who are most at risk who are looking at dropping out. One of our primary concerns is that they will not be able to access information about sexual health and, in our case particularly, HIV/AIDS prevention.

The lack of education on sexual health in schools across Canada right now also needs to be addressed. That vacuum has been evidenced by studies on sexual health that have been done by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. That study has revealed a lot about sexual health realities in education across Canada for youth today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Ménard.

Mr. Comartin.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for being here.

To the federation and the society, specifically on sexual health, were you consulted by the current government either before or since this bill has come forward?

[Andrea Cohen]

No.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

To Egale, on section 159 specifically, were you consulted by the current government as to how that should be dealt with either before this legislation came forward or since then?

[Kaj Hasselriis]

Not that I know of.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Ms. Cohen, you have some very general recommendations on a major change. I'm preparing some amendments for the Evidence Act to deal with the specific concern you have about people having to testify or give evidence that would be used against their sexual partners, and that being a reason why they would not seek medical treatment.

Are medical doctors, general practitioners specifically, subject to having to make those reports if they get that information from a patient?