If it's helpful to the committee to know this, we did follow up with respect to that issue of yesterday. We spoke to our legislative drafters. I can provide you with a little bit of information now that might be of assistance. But as Mr. Goguen says, we will follow up on this and ensure that when the opportunity arises, the proper versions can be changed, if that's possible.
I would like to reiterate, though, that legislation is drafted in English and in French separately; one is not a translation of the other. This provision in clause 103, referring to the sexual exploitation of persons with disabilities, was enacted in 1998. The marginal notes that were included in the French and the English versions, as noted by Madame Boivin yesterday and Mr. Cotler today, basically take differing perspectives. One describes it from the perspective of the victim and the other from that of the offender.
That is the way the marginal note appears in the Criminal Code now and has since 1998. That is the way that Parliament enacted it then. The marginal note does not provide part of the interpretation for the provision; it's the offence, and the offence is indicating the exact same elements in English and in French. They're not a direct translation of each other but contain the exact same provisions.
We are not able to change the reference in this bill as it refers to that in the Criminal Code, because that is what the Criminal Code says in the marginal note. If we had an ability to change the marginal note in the Criminal Code in another statute, our drafters have indicated that we would have to be amending that provision; we can't simply amend the marginal note. We would also have to go through and determine where else that provision had been referred to with the same marginal note in brackets in both languages. We would have to do a more thorough examination of where that provision appeared.
The other thing I would note is that to our knowledge, the fact that it's characterized one way in the French version and another in the English in the marginal note has not caused any problems of interpretation. None has been brought to our attention.
Concerning Mr. Cotler's point with respect to how that same provision is referred to in the schedule, relating to what was previously Bill 23-B, in our view it probably could be corrected, because that is not the way the Criminal Code refers to that provision. For internal consistency, it may well be possible that the French version could line up with the other French version as noted in clause 103, for the sake of internal consistency.
I realize this doesn't address your primary concern about the two languages taking a different perspective in the marginal notes, but it would address the internal inconsistency.