Mr. Chairman, many times with the changes named to some of these offences--and there have been some alterations and modifications over the years--there are provisions within the Criminal Code that include those previous offences, so somebody's not getting off.
With respect to your comments about changes to the Criminal Code, and that it sometimes seems complicated, I can tell you that from time to time proposals have been made to completely revamp it. I'm sure Mr. Lee was around when people were saying we should just take the whole Criminal Code and start all over again.
Basically, what we have here is an adaptation of the English Criminal Code from the 19th century, and it must be continuously updated. The bill you have before you is one of the updates.
On the subject of changing public attitudes, you mentioned the age of protection. If you go back to the 1870s, it was very common and accepted that people at age 14 got married, and they were adults. Today we look at that and say, just because the law in the 1870s had prohibitions with respect to 14-year-olds doesn't mean the law shouldn't be changed to 16. And that's the challenge you have.
We find this all time. Twenty years ago in this country, if you or somebody set fire to your car, that was not arson, but if somebody set fire to a stack of vegetables, that was arson. You say, how could that possibly be? Well, it's because the arson provisions of the Criminal Code 20 years ago in this country were written before there were cars, and the included property offences didn't include somebody setting fire to a vehicle.
So it seems to me that's the challenge we have. We must be continuously looking at these things.
With respect to this legislation, you raise an interesting point. It is somewhat complicated by reason of the fact that the bill you have before you is a stand-alone bill, but there are provisions so that under Bill C-13, which was passed in a previous Parliament, those could be enacted. So it's very challenging, I'm sure, even for lawyers to try to follow this, and you indicate you're not a lawyer. Nonetheless, it's the results that we want, that we're looking for, and certainly this is a step forward in the right direction.
With respect to your other comments, I hear what you're saying, but again, the Criminal Code has to be continuously updated on a regular basis.