I'll try to be really brief.
If you don't have an opportunity to respond, because we only have three to four minutes before the committee adjourns, I'd ask that you respond in writing.
The first point is that the age of consent is 18 for a number of sexual activities. It criminalizes a number of sexual activities--exploitive sex, etc.--in the Criminal Code. I think a certain amount of your concern is that regardless of the age of consent, whether it's 14, 15, or 16 years, there's a whole section where if you're under 18, the individual is over 18, and it's exploitive, it's criminal activity. I think that should remove a major part.
One of the things I'm hearing on the issue is that there will no longer be any kind of discretion on the part of the judge when the age difference is five years or more. You've witnessed cases where there is a sexual relationship and the age difference is five years or more, and in your expert opinion, given the work you do, it's not exploitive and the older individual should therefore not be criminalized.
My question to you is this. If there were some way to amend Bill C-22 to ensure there is still a certain level of discretion for judges to actually look at the nature of the relationship, and if they deem it's not sexually exploitive and would therefore not criminalize the older person, would that provide a level of comfort? That's the first question.
Secondly, in terms of harmonizing the age of consent for all kinds of sexual activity regardless of the age level—and I'm talking about section 159—we've been told it's outside the scope of the law as it has been presented here. It would literally mean the government would have to do it themselves through another bill--and I'm sure they would get agreement on from the opposition to hopefully fast-track it--or through a private member's bill, in which case it probably wouldn't see the light of day for months, if not for years.
You might want to again ask the government to harmonize the age of consent for anal intercourse, because that's what we're talking about. I'm talking to everyone who's in favour of having it harmonized so that we're not discriminating among sexual activities based on sexual orientation.