Very briefly.
I think we all understand that none of this changes the wording dealing with the offences, which is clear and precise. But there is a principle in law that states that Parliament does not speak in vain. Perhaps we do not need to be so careful in this particular case, but, under that principle, just to put our minds at rest, we should ask our experts and our jurists to look into it quickly so that we know why the two headings are so different. But there is still a subtle difference that is interesting. If I say…
“sexual exploitation of person with disability”, that's kind of the section.
In French, it says: “personnes en situation d'autorité”. Those are two different concepts. In a way, one is talking about the victim and the other is talking about the criminal.
We may have stumbled on this purely by chance, but it is something that should be corrected. If we cannot correct it in this process, through Bill C-10, I mean, someone should at least come back to us at the end to tell us if it is appropriate to bring forward some amendments.
I am Joint Chair of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations. That is where we spend our time studying regulations with a view to finding words here and there that are different in French and English and to making sure that they are correct, in headings or anywhere else. Headings may not have the force of law, but people often use them anyway.
Though we are told that we must not use headings, can we at least make this amendment to put our minds at rest in this case? I would even accept being told that we are going to make an amendment in a future bill to correct something that everyone would agree with, given that it makes no sense now. For heaven's sake, it seems to me that it should not be rocket science for us to be careful and wait until tomorrow.
Sometimes people ask me if I think I can get amendments passed. In cases like this, cases where we should be able to amend headings that contain such obvious errors, but we are not able to—surely you agree that the changes are superficial—then we have a problem. Maybe it is because we have no way of changing anything to anything. But come on.