I would just like to ask Mr. Comartin for some details about the question I asked Ms. Morency. I know that you are very knowledgeable about matrimonial law, but in criminal matters, we read the law. When defence counsel is representing an accused, he uses the effective date as a point of reference. He has a date in mind. Now you are replacing the term “date on which the subsection comes into effect” with “the date of the alleged offence”.
Ms. Morency left the question I asked her a little up in the air. Does that mean that you are going back in time and that you are providing protection retroactively? You know as well as I do that, in an indictment, you can accuse someone of an offence of a sexual nature 20 years later. I would like to know, if an indictment is made 20 years later, whether your amendment would provide any protection.
In Quebec, for offences of a sexual nature, young women do come before the courts alleging that their father, for example, abused them 10 and 20 years earlier. When you use the term “alleged offence”, do you want to provide protection in all cases? We don't do that if we just talk about the effective date. As I understand it, you want the law to be as retroactive as possible. So if a young woman claimed that she was the victim of abuse, that there had been an alleged offence, she would not be able to accuse her attacker. I am just asking the question. At the moment, I don't know any more than you do.