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.