Thank you, Chair.
I'm looking at the amendment, and I appreciate what Mr. Comartin is trying to do, but I think we have to remember that we're all in agreement on the issue of protecting people under 16 from exploitative relationships. We've been going over this for some time now on the five-year close-in-age exemption, which is a very clear and powerful and broad exemption that protects against criminalizing teenagers and their relationships.
I think we have to remember why we're doing what we're doing. It's to prevent young people who are under the age of 16 from exploitative relationships. I and the government are not interested in creating an exemption--which I feel, incidentally, would be an unconstitutional exemption--an exemption where someone's married. We're not interested in creating an unconstitutional exemption or a loophole.
We've seen in some U.S. states where these loopholes exist, and I don't think that's the way we want to go, to say to someone, you can avoid what would otherwise be an exploitative and criminal relationship by getting married to this young person. And we've heard testimony here where a young person has left home, and the parents go to the police and ask, “What can I do? My 14-year-old is living with a 27-year-old, and they won't come home.” The police say, “There's nothing we can do.”
So around this table we've all been in agreement that that's what we wanted to address. Now we're saying that if these people are married we want an exemption to that. I'm not in favour of creating that loophole, pushing people, making a bad situation worse, probably in many cases making a bad situation worse.
We've seen what some American states have done. It's not been successful, in my view. Although I appreciate the effort that's gone into crafting this amendment, I won't be supporting it.