Justice Committee on March 27th, 2007

[Michèle Roy]

I think that's what we tried to raise earlier when we asked how, in a society, we could accept the idea that there is an age where sexual exploitation is legitimate and acceptable, and send another message to youth by telling them that this isn't acceptable before a given age.

For example, we know perfectly well that Internet luring for trafficking in human beings is done in order to feed and fuel the sex industry in all its forms. The fact that they recruit youths 12 years of age, people of 22 or 36—and that stops quite quickly—is all related to the same wish to feed an industry.

So if you don't talk about buyers, if you don't talk about the fact that you're trying to have sexual relations, free of charge or by paying, with youths, for example, or with adults, if you don't state the issues behind that, and if you don't denounce the contradiction that exists in our society that consists in saying that we have to protect young people of a certain age from sexual exploitation, but that sexual exploitation is possible in our country after that age, how do you want young people to understand such a contradictory message? How can they draw the distinction? They're going to think they need protection up to a given age, but that they can be exploited after that age.

They say that youths have sexual relations at the age of 14, but we also know that prostitution starts around the same age. In a way, we're telling them that consenting to having sexual relations and being paid to have sexual relations isn't the same thing. The ambiguity is there.

In a report of another justice committee, a very clear connection has just been made between trafficking in persons and prostitution. Will trafficking in youths and adults be taken into account in the legislative changes we're going to propose? We can't simply say that we want to protect young people from sexual exploitation without calling sexual exploitation as a whole into question.

I think that's what our organization would like to point out. It's true that the message of this bill is aimed at youth, not adults. It's a very big concern to think that the message that may come out of this bill is that youths can consent to have sexual relations at a given age, but that that message is not aimed at adults.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Ms. Roy.

Mr. Lee.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I don't blame some people for being a little mesmerized by the complexity of the law. The statute proposed certainly does attempt to protect the person under 16 years of age, but as I read the law, it seems to be a lot less than people think it is. So I want to direct my comments to those who've said the statute muddies the waters, makes it complex for a young person, in particular a 14- or 15-year- old, to determine whether he or she is into illegality or not.

The law certainly doesn't criminalize sexual activity by a 14- or 15-year-old, certainly if they're close in age, within five years, so that type of sexual contact will continue.

Then in relation to sexual assaults, Mr. Moore has suggested that what we're dealing with is the age of consent to have sex or be involved in a sexual act. It may not be all of that. It is whether or not consent of the complainant is a defence to a sexual assault, and that's all it is. So we are not criminalizing sexual activity on the part of a 14- or 15-year-old.

But I can think of one scenario that's not clear, and I would like to ask if you agree, where the 14- or 15-year-old is the aggressor in a sexual act, where the other individual who is more than five years older is simply passive, or even if the person who is more than five years older has offered some inducement for the sexual act. As I read it, this statute does not criminalize the actions of the 14- and 15-year-old because all the act does is remove the ability of the 14- and 15-year-old to consent. But where the 14- and 15-year-old is the actor, the aggressor, he or she is not the complainant; he or she might be the one who is seen as committing the assault.

I'm not confused by that; I'm reading the law the way it's written, and perhaps we can get some technical advice on that later. Can I have reaction from the groups who are urging us to be cautious because the statute is complicated and will confuse the 14- and 15-year-old and may scare them off accessing information about sexual health?

[Andrea Cohen]

It's a complex question, in addition to the legislation being complex.

One of the things that people constantly use as an example when we're having this discourse is, do we think it's okay for a 50-year-old man to be having sex with a 15-year-old girl? I think most of us would agree that, in all likelihood, that's probably not a good and healthy situation for that 15-year-old girl.

But there are a number of cases, certainly in the community where my health centre is located, where it's common for a 15-year-old girl to have sex with a 21-year-old, and that 21-year-old may still go to her high school and may be a part of her community and a friend of the family, and her parents may think that's an okay relationship as well. So there are these complexities to this.

When we read the legislation—and we're not lawyers, so maybe this is a good perspective to have—it didn't appear to focus on exploitation. It focused on an age. Age is not an indicator of whether a young person is being exploited or not, and my understanding of the previous legislation is that it took individual factors into account.

Perhaps those individual factors need to be strengthened. Perhaps we need to put more resources into trying to go after predators and trying to have young people come forward, because Internet luring comes up consistently. Certainly when the legislation was first broached, parents were concerned that their kids were going to be lured over the Internet. I have a child at home and I'm concerned about that too.

What I think will probably protect my child most is having a trusting relationship with an adult to be able to tell about things, the feeling of empowerment to make decisions about whether to say no, about what's right and wrong. That's done in the context of their own family values and their family situation. Those are the things that protect kids from exploitation; it's not having a blunt age.

That's my first reaction to those comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Does anyone else have a response to Mr. Lee's question?

Go ahead, Faytene.

[Faytene Kryskow]

I think they should exist together. We should have a society that encourages education and encourages trusting relationships, where young people have a safe person they can go to in order to tell. But we also still need to consider those who are going to be exploited and make sure laws are in place to protect them when they are exploited. I don't actually think those two things are mutually exclusive. I think it's important that they exist together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Ms. Freeman.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

First, I want to thank you all for your presentations, which were really very enlightening for us. I noticed that everyone's common concerns at the outset are really education and health, in addition to section 159, which obviously raises a lot of questions for parliamentarians.

In my preamble, when we received the Minister of Justice, I mentioned that, before thinking about developing regulations and so on, we should mainly think about prevention and education—I see that's the concern of everyone here—as well as health.

With regard to health, I'd like Ms. Cohen to explain further the recommendations she's making here.

In the first recommendations, you say that not only medical information, but all medical information and health education services should be treated as confidential information. That's what you propose in your recommendations.

Can you tell us more on that subject? If we eventually proposed an amendment to ensure that all these types of information are confidential, could that satisfy you?

[Andrea Cohen]

Yes, I think so. Currently health providers are certainly obliged to report all kinds of different behaviour, child abuse being one of them. There's room for the health care provider to make an assessment and a judgment on what child abuse is.

In the recommendations that we've suggested, we're looking for health care providers who are quite well trained and well experienced. If they're able to build trusting relationships, they would probably be in a position to assess whether or not a relationship is exploitative. That ability won't be about the age of the young person. It will be about how competent they are to make decisions, who the adult is, the age of the adult, and whether or not the adult is in a position of trust or authority.

Those kinds of differences make a big difference in whether or not the child is being exploited, as opposed to it being a friend of their brother who is in the house all the time, and that looks a little different to them. We're hoping it will actually encourage young people to come and seek out health services to build a trusting relationship.

Once the trusting relationship is in place, we can actually talk to youth about how they are making decisions. Do they feel they have what they need? Are they getting access to services? Are they protecting themselves from STIs and unintended pregnancies? Those are really valuable in terms of what we see as protecting young people.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Right now, I would like to speak to Ms. Tremblay and Ms. Roy because I know that my riding office is next door to one of the CALACS offices in Châteauguay. So I'm always in touch with those people.

You seem to find this bill inadequate to meet the needs that you express. However, you have to take into account the fact that we are currently studying this bill and that we have to improve it. We have to work within the context of this bill, right now. Do you have any specific suggestions as to what could be improved?

You've come with a very broad presentation. It's very good that we talk about trafficking in women, and we also have to take into account the specific situation in Quebec, where young women can have the right to an abortion at the age of 15 without their parents knowing and can have a right to contraception. Our practice is quite different from that in effect in the other provinces.

We nevertheless have to try to see how we can improve the bill that has been introduced, not try to provide a comprehensive solution to the entire problem of exploitation.

[Carole Tremblay]

I think Bill C-22 provides the necessary leeway to allow judges more discretion regarding all the considerations mentioned earlier. Youths have this fear—in any case, we met some who have it—of getting caught in the calculation of age and of being charged with sexual assault in particular circumstances. For them, it's not easy to understand when mistaken age will be admissible or not. If only in the preamble, I think we should name these things, these fears, and allow more discretionary authority. That's one of the answers I have to provide.

My other answers would not be directly contained in Bill C-22, and I know you want to limit your question to that, but we think that every circumstance of sexual exploitation should be considered as an aggravating factor, even after the age of 18. Currently, with regard to sexual assault, the sexual exploitation of persons 18 years of age and over is not considered an aggravating factor. What is is violence and signs of injury, and so on. That definitely still takes us back to our original position.

There's something else that causes a big reaction in me as well. You know, the people we meet in the CALACS in Quebec are mainly victims, yes, of sexual assault by persons much older than they, but by persons who are in a relationship of trust with them, relations, people within the family and so on. Beyond Bill C-22, there are still a lot of changes to be made to police know-how to facilitate the judicial handling of the victims of sexual assault.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

What do you mean by police know-how?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Just quickly respond.

[Michèle Roy]

What we currently see is that very often, when youths go to the police or are referred to them, the attitude of police officers, the type of questions they ask, the assistance the youths receive make a difference. And in some cases, that concerns the attorneys as well. There's also the fact that they are not assisted in these efforts by a person of trust of their choosing and cannot be informed of their rights in this regard. Youths are very reluctant to go and ask questions or eventually consider filing a complaint or, for example, violence and sexual exploitation in all their forms. These measures have to be attached to something else.

We talked about prevention and education, but all the youths who, directly or indirectly, are affected by the implementation of this act will also have to receive support that will specifically take into account their particular characteristics, their relations with the police communities or with the legal system as a whole, as well as with those that can be called witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Ms. Freeman.

We'll go to Mr. Thompson.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thanks very much.

I appreciate you people being here today. I want to especially extend my appreciation to Donny Melanson. It takes a lot of courage, when you have experienced a tragic point in your life, to come forward and be willing to talk about it and spread your warning. I just appreciate that.

I too am like my colleague here. I've been in the education business for 30 years, most of the time as the principal of a junior-senior high. I've seen examples of these types of situations. The best results we had were when we involved other aspects of the situation, and I haven't heard too much about that today. I've heard about education, going to the schools, getting guidance counsellors, getting the support groups and peer groups, and all kinds of things. But I didn't hear the parents mentioned very much. I didn't hear them mentioned at all, as a matter of fact, as a support group. And I didn't hear the church being mentioned very much, which is another organization that is in most communities and likes to help when it can with certain problems.

I know that we had these kinds of situations. It really bothered me to have, toward the final years of my tenure, a 39-year-old single mother with a 14-year-old daughter who ran off and lived on a reserve with a 26-year-old man. The mother begged the police. She came to me, as a politician, begging me to help get this 14-year-old girl out of that situation with this 26-year-old. But because the 14-year-old gave her consent, the police could not move, and the parent had no authority to take her out. They simply couldn't do anything.

I do not want to see children--and 14-year-olds and 15-year-olds are children--caught up in those kinds of situations. Something has to happen, and the only thing that can happen in that regard to a 14- or 15-year-old is that you raise the age of consent to 16. Then the parents can get the police and they can remove the child from that unfavourable situation.

That's why I want this raised, specifically for that kind of situation. And I want a message sent to those people who come to the Internet, or through other sources, child shopping for 14- and 15-year-olds because they know they can do it in Canada and not get into trouble if they're successful in getting consent.

True, you can't exploit. That's against the law. If there is consent, you can go for the exploitation charge, but that won't break up the consensual situation.

There was the 55-year-old who came here and got a 15-year-old--from Texas, I believe--and lured the boy to a room. The boy was absolutely upset that they charged this guy for exploitation, which they did, because he wanted the relationship, and he had the right to have it because he was 15.

The picture is much bigger than that, so I think the message has to be to those who would seek the consent of a 14- or 15-year-old child. And I'm going to keep calling them children, because that's what they are--they're children.

Regardless of what they did in 1890--back in those years they used to trade 13-year-olds for two horses, and it was okay because it was accepted by society--there are a lot of things that aren't accepted anymore. Society has progressed beyond those kinds of things. To go back and say that it's been that way since 1890...well, I could never use that argument when they lowered the drinking age. They said that it had been 21 forever, but they still lowered it. So that's not an argument.

I'm saying that we have to stop predators from thinking they can come and develop a consensual relationship with 14- and 15-year-olds in this country. This bill will do it. We have to get a message to young people that you cannot consent to a situation that pertains to this bill at the age of 14 or 15. You cannot even consider it until you're 16. I want those two messages to be loud and clear.

Now, what is wrong with that? Why are we getting objections to a bill that says, protect the children? They're 14 and 15. Give the parents authority. They're the ones who had them. They're their children.

Why can't the churches be involved with helping to rehabilitate and with understanding?

I saw them bring sexual education programs into my school. They're okay, they didn't hurt anything necessarily, but the doctors in the communities who came asking for some of these things to happen within the schools reported back after five- and ten-year reviews that the situation hadn't improved. There were still too many teenage pregnancies, still too many diseases, etc. So that wasn't the total answer.

But I haven't heard the name “parents” being mentioned as a resource group.

I'll just emphasize this once again. You perpetrators, stay out of Canada with the idea you're going to nail some 14- and 15-year-old to consent. It isn't going to happen. And you children under the age of 16, you're not going to be able to consent to having a sexual relationship with an older individual. No more are you going to be able to jump in the vehicle and take off for a drive when you're 14 years old, if you feel like it. And I think we have to be firm about it.

So you can comment. I would like Donny to respond, or Faytene, or anyone else, if you would like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Perhaps you would respond, and then Ms. Capperauld.

[Faytene Kryskow]

First of all, I can speak pretty confidently on behalf of our network, based on the e-mails, etc., that have come into our office, that many in our network would be very grateful to hear an individual like you, from whatever party, taking a stand like that. And I think our friends from McGill will agree. Homosexuality was illegal in 1890, and I don't hear them advocating to go back to that. So I agree, we have to evaluate with where we're at today and the fact that we didn't have Internet predators in 1890, that sort of thing.

The other thing I want to mention is that I think the sentiments you share, Mr. Moore, do reflect community standards. I'm not a law student, but from what I understand, this is an important principle in Canadian legislation. Our lives need to reflect community standards, and it's very clear from every survey that I've seen. As I said, I was surprised at how high the numbers were in our survey and that the average Canadian is saying yes, we agree with this and this reflects our values as Canadian citizens. These aren't special interest groups that are speaking; these are average Canadians who are bringing their voices to the table.

So I think that would be my two cents on that.

I would like to back up what Mr. Thompson was sharing with another story. This is an e-mail that came in just last night from a 21-year-old named Bonnie Barker. She said:

A couple months ago a young girl came into our youth church where I am a leader. I soon learned her story from herself and from her mother. She recently turned 14, but had already been targeted by an age 40+ man. He gained her consent for sexual intercourse, and now this young girl is pregnant. The man is no longer in the picture, but as those in her life, we are SICK that there is currently no law to stop this from happening again.

At the time, she may have thought that she was mature enough, but now, I guarantee you, she's knows she was not. She is scared and imagines that her life and what she dreamed for it is over.

As a 21 year old Canadian citizen, I want these young people protected!

Bonnie Barker from British Columbia.

[Donny Melanson]

Can I just add to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Go ahead, Mr. Melanson.

[Donny Melanson]

I really like what you had to say. I completely agree with you that the parents and the churches should be more involved. I think over the years and generations, some parents and churches have gotten a bad rap. However, there are agencies and churches out there that are making a big difference in the world today. I happen to be a part of one in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, and we speak against human trafficking. We speak against modern-day slavery. We advocate for the youth who are being exploited.

I did some writing on the plane and I was just looking at the age of consent. Basically it's an enabler to our young generation, saying you're old enough to be responsible for the well-being of your own body. This attitude can absolutely lead to unhealthy decision-making that generates harmful situations that our youth may not even be aware of. Even though they may be consenting, there is somewhere deep inside where they know that this is just not right, even though the words come out of their mouth and they say yes, I consent to something like this. So they even need protection from themselves.

That's pretty much all I want to say now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Ms. Capperauld.

[Linda Capperauld]

We've observed and know from some research that sexual health education in the schools is quite inconsistent and sometimes non-existent. Based on other research, we know that good, comprehensive sexual health education includes more than just the body parts and the facts; it includes helping young people learn how to negotiate relationships, build their skills to say no when things are inappropriate, and use the values they've learned to make their choices.

Good comprehensive sexual health education also involves parents. It's very clear that parents are involved. Young people are encouraged to do work at home with their parents as part of the course curriculum. Parents are highly valued as being important educators of sexual health information for young people, and they are recognized in the curriculum. It's also interesting that surveys have shown that a very high percentage of parents want their children to learn more of this at younger ages in the school system.

The Joint Consortium for School Health that we mentioned in our second recommendation is also looking to involve a much broader spectrum of Canadian society. It's beginning to look at how to involve churches, community groups, youth groups, police groups, and a whole lot of folks to look at how to make the school system healthier and embrace a sexual health curriculum that is comprehensive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Hasselriis.

[Kaj Hasselriis]

The first presenter talked about 14- and 15-year-olds being hormonal, and we heard from Mr. Lee about 14- and 15-year-olds being sexual aggressors in certain situations. I would like to reiterate that we know it is a fact that 14- and 15-year-olds are consenting to sex and looking in lots of different places for information about sex.

If I can speak just briefly on the gay and lesbian, bisexual, and trans-identified youth experience, certainly parents are a good place to go for information about sex. The church is another good place to go. But there are a lot of young people out there who do not feel comfortable asking their churches for advice, or their parents. In some cases their churches feel that the decisions they're making are totally wrong. Young people don't even want to raise the issues inside their churches or with their parents. They don't feel comfortable doing that. They do feel comfortable raising those issues with others in youth groups in their high schools. We really have to acknowledge that, and that the reality of youth sexuality should be demonstrated very clearly in law.