Evidence of meeting #62 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was marriage.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10 a.m.
Acting General Counsel, Department of Justice
Under the age of 15, that's correct.
10 a.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
You're going to criminalize that relationship in those two territories.
April 19th, 2007 / 10 a.m.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
What Bill C-22 says is if you're under 16, if you're 14 or 15 years old, someone who's over five years older cannot have a sexual relationship with you. I guess from our perspective, the idea of creating an exemption because someone happened to get pregnant doesn't make a lot of sense.
Why should we treat a couple differently if there's a 27-year-old male and 15-year-old female, for example, and in one case the male is lucky enough that she is now pregnant, so he is exempted? To put those kinds of defences in I think would be too broad.
The practical reality is this law meshes very well with the provincial laws when it comes to marriage, in many cases. Also, with immigration, it's 100% consistent on the age of 16. In those situations where someone is under that age, in most cases the female would have to be pregnant, which means the offence has already taken place.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
But for the marriage to have been granted, the female would have had to have been pregnant, that's the point.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Rob Moore Conservative Fundy Royal, NB
But in the refugee case, in the case of immigration, we already do not recognize the marriage unless the person is 16. In the case of someone under 16, in order for there to be a marriage, there has to be a pregnancy. In order for there to be a pregnancy, there has to have been the offence.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
If I may, just to correct, and not because I'm in opposition to what Mr. Moore is saying, from the information that Mrs. Morency gave us, there are several provinces where the exception to the legal age of marriage is that the girl has to be pregnant. There are several other jurisdictions that will allow for a marriage of an under-16-year-old for a variety of grounds, not just pregnancy. So this means that there would be situations where, if the girl is pregnant, and they can convince the judge, for instance, that when she became pregnant they were married, then the criminal activity has been exempted. In other cases, it may not be a pregnancy, it may be another issue, where the judge says yes, you can get married, and the criminal activity is exempted. And then you'll have other situations where they won't be able to convince a judge of marriage, for whatever reason, so the criminal activity is not exempt.
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
I would like to interject here. I know there are a number of speakers yet on my list, and this looks like it could go on for the rest of this morning. I'm of the opinion—and I'm trusting that the committee is going to help me out here—that we have enough information before us on this discussion and I think the matter should be put to a vote.
Do I have the agreement of this committee?
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
One point of clarification from Mr. Bagnell, and then we're going to....
10 a.m.
Liberal
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
For Mrs. Morency, can you just expand on what the charter challenge would be, explain the problem, if we just allowed marriages in Mr. Comartin's exemption?
10 a.m.
Acting General Counsel, Department of Justice
On that issue, if you provide a defence to a married couple, you'd be denying the same defence to a couple similarly situated, and that would raise a concern about charter discriminatory treatment. Parliament has seen those issues in recent years.
So that would be a significant concern. In fact, it would be a very high charter risk to have that differential treatment. Based on the stats that we have, the majority of cases would fall in the category that wouldn't benefit from the defence.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
That's a good point.
Thank you, Mrs. Morency and Mr. Bagnell.
Now, I think the matter should be put to a vote.
10:05 a.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
No. I would like to ask a question, please, to Mr. Comartin.
10:05 a.m.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
We were on the verge of accepting marriage only but some details of Mr. Comartin's explanation escape me. I would like him to complete his explanation. He seems willing to do that in order to clarify his position for us.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
It's unclear because of the comment Mr. Lee made. He's looked at this a lot, but he obviously doesn't appreciate this. If you simply put in the marriage as a defence, it's not going to be just marriages that are approved. We have three jurisdictions that allow for marriage under 16--no court approval, no approval from anybody else. If one of the parties is under 16--
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
Acting General Counsel, Department of Justice
Three do not allow any under 16.
