Mr. Speaker, I want to relate to the House an experience I had in my lifetime. I practised law in rural Saskatchewan for 23 years, in the great community of Nipawin, Saskatchewan, a community of 5,000 to 6,000 people. When people have lived in a community as long as I have, everybody knows one another.
I must say, too, that when one practises law, the law sometimes leaves something to be desired. From time to time we encounter things that just make us just shake our heads and wonder why the people who make the laws in the land, in Parliament and so on, do not remedy them.
A couple I knew quite well came to my office in tears. They had a great family. I knew some of the kids. Some of them were in university and some out of university and so on. Their daughter, who had just turned 14, had them weeping in my office. The problem was that the girl had taken up with a man who was 48 years of age. The parents were very concerned about this situation. They believed that it was an abusive and exploitive situation. The girl was too immature, in their minds, to make decisions like that herself, and she was in this situation. Quite frankly, I found it appalling.
I told them that there must be something we could do in this land, that there had to be a law that would allow parents to be parents and take care of their young children and protect them from those sorts of situations. In the peace and quiet of my own law office that evening, I went through everything I had, including the Criminal Code, the provincial laws and so on.
I found that under the provincial laws it is the parent's responsibility to provide children with schooling and the necessaries of life and so on until they are of legal age. That was clearly in the law. As well, there are custody disputes between parents who are splitting up as to who would have actual guardianship of these of 14 year old children so they can see them through their teen years and make sure they come out as good, solid young Canadian adults.
Then I went to the Criminal Code. I said, “There has to be something missing here. I cannot believe the law would not empower parents”. I went through the Criminal Code and found the provisions that this government is responsible for and refuses to do anything about. It basically gives a 14 year old the right to have sexual relationships as if she is a full adult. There is no help for the parents. It occurred to me that every sexual predator, especially those with a pedophiliac background, knows that this is the law of this land. And in this Internet age, boy, is that a huge opportunity. It is not a crack in the door. It is opening the barn door right up for a whole pile of exploitation.
One of the difficult things I had to do in that particular situation was to phone those people the next day to be the messenger for the law. Quite often as a lawyer one gets shot for being the messenger. One of the reasons I am here is that I hope I can influence the law sometimes so that we can be a better messenger when advising people and telling them what the state of the law is. It was a very painful experience for me to let those good folks know that there was nothing in the law that would help them. The police could not do anything; their hands were tied. The whole thing was just total nonsense.
There are 301 of us who were sent here. We are supposed to bring our common sense to this House and deal with matters like that. It seems to me that this is not a complicated issue. If we had questions and comments now, I would once again like to ask members opposite to give me one single reason why 14 year olds should not be protected and under the care of their parents and not left to be exploited by sexual predators and pedophiles in our society. This is shameful.
This is shameful; if only there were one ballot question on this in the next election when people go to mark their ballots. The Liberals mention things like artistic merit to defend the right of people who exploit young children to hide behind some sort of bogus argument like public good or artistic merit. Another thing that the Liberals hang their hats on is these sorts of defences.
Some say there has to be a youth offenders act because these people are not responsible for their actions and cannot be dealt with in criminal court and we have to treat them differently. However, when it comes to sexual relationships with 48-year-old men, then they are old enough to make those decisions, the state has no interest and neither do their parents and they can get out of the picture. This is appalling.
We talk about the culture of corruption and incompetence. I would say that one of the appalling things is the mentality to defend these kind of laws which falls within the parameters of corruption as well. Where are people's ethics and values when they can honestly stand behind these sorts of protections afforded to these sexual predators and people that prey upon our youth?
Every Canadian would want this House to stand up for 14-year-old people and support the parents who are trying to help their kids out, instead of letting them down like this.
I was not planning on speaking to this issue, but I am certainly glad I took the opportunity to do so. I wish there were questions and comments because the last time this bill came before us, I never heard a member from the opposite side come up with one intelligent reason why we could not change this law.
In fact, I want to raise an issue. When the question was raised the last time, a member of the Bloc actually stood up and said he thought the age should be lowered. He said that in his riding people want it lowered. I think he mentioned 12 years of age.
It made me scratch my head. Maybe I am from the wrong planet or the wrong part of the country. I am from rural Saskatchewan and people there are out of touch with this modern world. It has passed me by very quickly. I cannot actually believe that the member's constituents in the riding that he represents in that province would actually believe there would be anything good coming from lowering the age to 12 years from 14 years.
Once again, if people are scratching their heads and cannot find a reason to vote in this election, I would say this issue alone should get all Canadians out to vote, if they cannot figure out a reason to vote in the next election. Parliament should be a force for good. We should not be defending those people who are not there to do good things for our young people.
This is something that the lawmakers could do. It could be very effective. It would certainly help the police. It is appalling that police officers do extensive investigations on pedophiles. They set their trap only to find out that the victim of the pedophile was a 14 year old.
In my riding last summer there were two men in their twenties charged with sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl. They were acquitted. If I can believe the newspaper accounts in this case, they picked up an aboriginal girl 12 years of age and I guess they gave her liquor and so on and had a sexual situation with this young girl. It was a very painful thing; there was a lot of publicity in my province of Saskatchewan.
What was their lawyer's defence when it came to arguing the case before the judge? They thought she was over 14. Guess what happened? The judge acquitted them. The assaults had taken place. The girl had clearly been assaulted. The sexual relations had taken place. The judge acquitted the two men in their twenties because there was a reasonable doubt. Maybe someone thought there was a chance she was be 14.
I find this whole area very disturbing. This should not be a partisan issue. It should be a common sense issue, but common sense does not seem to be a strong point for the members opposite.