Mr. Speaker, I trust that the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice will listen to me for the 20 minutes at my disposal. With regard to the last question from my hon. colleague from the Sherbrooke area, I an not sure that the answer given by the parliamentary secretary will be found in Bill C-22.
We must acknowledge that Bill C-22 is an important piece of legislation. I would like to quote the law clerks who analysed it. We know how it works in this House. When the government tables a bill, it is analysed by law clerks who make recommendations and explain the substance of the legislation. Thus, permit me to quote the law clerks who stated:
The text amends the Criminal Code to raise the age of consent, from fourteen to sixteen, for a non-exploitative sexual activity.
The wording is very important
It creates an exception in respect of any person who engages in sexual activity with a 14- or 15-year-old youth and who is less than five years older than the youth.
After practising criminal law for 25 years I can tell you that I am not certain that Bill C-22, in its present form, will lead to more charges from youth who are victims of illicit sexual acts. However, and this is where the bill becomes very interesting, or at least interesting, it does seek to better protect older youth from becoming victims of sexual exploitation.
The important aspect of Bill C-22 is that it also seeks to send a message to sexual predators that Canada will not tolerate the abuse of adolescents. On the international scene, this bill will clarify, affirm and confirm that Canada is not a destination for sex tourism. Now it will be said, throughout the world, that no one should think of Canada as a destination for sex tourism.
Consequently, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill C-22 and thus we should vote that it be sent to committee.
Since I currently sit on the Standing Committee on Justice, this will make one more bill for us to study. In fact, this good government—as it likes to describe itself—has inundated us with so many bills that we are having a hard time distinguishing what I would describe as exclusively right-wing American-style bills from bills that actually provide protection. This bill comes under the latter category.
The government probably should have introduced this bill before the others. We have 12 bills to study, and this one will be the 13th. Unfortunately for this government, I am not sure it can withstand a potential election in the coming years, the coming year or the coming months. This bill will be considered in order of priority and will certainly not be studied in committee before next year.
However, the Bloc Québécois has always recognized the need to increase child protection, which this bill does. The Bloc has always played an active role in meeting this objective.
We support this bill in principle, because it seems to provide added protection, enabling us to fight more effectively against the exploitation of the most vulnerable members of our society: children. However—and this is the thrust of our position—the Bloc Québécois will make sure that the bill does not have any adverse effects on the health and freedom of the young people we are seeking to protect.
I almost called you “Your Lordship”, Mr. Speaker. I am so used to pleading before the court I was going to give you that honour. Your salary would have strangely increased over the next few hours because salaries are a great deal higher for judges than for those of us gathered here in this House.
Mr. Speaker, I could list all the protection measures and everything that has been done during the past few years. Whether it was the Liberals or the Conservatives—regardless of which party was in power—the Criminal Code has been amended over the years. Heaven knows I am aware of that because defence lawyers have had to live with the restrictions imposed by these amendments.
It is essential that those who are listening to us, that the public that is listening, knows and understands that the Criminal Code now offers protection to children who feel that they have been sexually exploited—and who actually have been—by sexual predators. This protection has been introduced in recent years. I could refer to many points. For example, a victim no longer is required to testify in front of the accused. The accused is protected from seeing the victim and above all the victim is protected from testifying in front of the accused. The Criminal Code was amended to provide this protection to victims. In the past few years, an effort has been made, in the Criminal Code, to provide special protection for the youngest victims. The majority of those victims are women.
I remember the early years—I would not even dare to say they were good years—when the accused person before the court often was not the person sitting at my side, but very often, the victim, who was called on to testify and whose whole life was drawn out in great detail in an attempt to have our client acquitted.
Defence lawyers realized well before the crown did that we had gone too far. Little by little the rules were revised to prevent lawyers from using the victims to win acquittal for their clients by using underhanded means to unsettle a witness to the point where she could not continue to testify. That is what we are doing now. We are adding Bill C-22 to this wall we have built to protect victims.
This bill will make it possible for victims to tell the court, freely and above all under protection, what they have suffered. That is what I wish and it is also what the Bloc Québécois wishes. Today, it is unthinkable that victims should testify in court and be so afraid of their abuser that very often, after several hours of testimony, they stop and never return. They continue to be abused.
If this bill could help prevent that, the Bloc feels that it would be a good additional stone in the wall protecting victims of sexual aggression. It would provide additional protection against sexual predators.
The bill provides, however, for some exceptions. People will have to understand this. The Bloc Québécois was originally against the bill that reduced the age of consent from 16 to 14 years. The government's position was, “that's it, period, end of discussion”. Young people can and do have sexual relations between the ages of 14 and 17 or 18. I believe that it would be closing our eyes, it would be what is called “wilful blindness” in legal jargon, to say that there are no sexual relationships and no sexual contact among 14 year olds.
It is part of the way the world is changing.
That is why the bill provides an exception for 14 and 15 year olds who engage in non-exploitative sexual activities. This is very important: we insist on the expression “non-exploitative” being in the bill.
Take the example of street gangs. I am thinking of the example of young runaways in drop-in centres. I mean young girls and boys between 13 and 15 years of age who end up, despite themselves, in street gangs and are sexually exploited and engage in prostitution when they are as young as 15 or 17 under the control of a 17 or 18 year old. It says in a “non-exploitative” way and this bill will make an exception.
It can easily happen that 14 or 15 year-olds go out—as they say in school—with 16 or 17 year olds. If these young people engage in sexual activities, it will not be possible to charge them under the Criminal Code.
The bill provides a notable exception for 14 or 15 year olds who engage in “non-exploitative” sexual activities with a partner who is less than five years older than they are. The message is clear.
It is and will be unacceptable, if this bill passes, for a 20 year old to go out with a 14 year old girl. That could not be clearer in this bill.
Bill C-22 has three exceptions: a close in age exception of five years for young people aged 14 or 15, a close in age exception of two years for young people aged 12 or 13, whereby 12 and 13 year olds could have sexual relations with 14 or 15 year olds. This can happen; it does happen. I repeat, it would be wilful blindness to say this will not happen or that this will no longer happen. It is happening today and will continue to happen tomorrow. There will also be a transitional exception whereby on the day on which this act comes into force, young people aged 14 or 15 and their partner who is over five years older can legally continue to have sexual contact only if they are married, living in common law or have a child as a result of their relationship.
This means that a young person aged 19 or 20 and his girlfriend aged 15 or 16 could continue to have sexual contact if they are common-law partners. They cannot each live with their parents. They must live together, have a child together or be married; if not, they must end their relations. This part of the bill seems difficult to enforce, but time will tell.
It has been calculated, and I hope studies will prove it in committee, that it is very rare for young people aged 15 or 16 and 20 to continue having relations and not live together. For example, a 14 or 15 year old girl living with her 17 or 19 year old boyfriend might benefit from the exception.
I admit this is quite complex and that these are important decisions, but we needed to talk about these exceptions to show that the government is not against relations between persons aged 14 and 15. The purpose of the bill is to protect children.
However, there are avenues to be explored, avenues that must be very closely examined. For example, the fact has been raised—and the question from my colleague, the member for Sherbrooke to the parliamentary secretary was part of it—that the low rate of disclosure and reporting by victims of sexual assault is a major obstacle to the fight against sexual crimes.
I do not know how this will be tackled or how the government intends to publicize this bill; but this bill will not solve all the problems.
It is impossible to take action if a young person lies or hides a relationship to protect the assailant. The public and the parents who are listening to us here in this House must understand that they have to talk to their children and tell them that with this bill they can now make a complaint if they are victims of sexual assault and that, if they do, they will receive protection.
However, numerous studies suggest that each year barely 10% of sexual assaults are reported to the police. We strongly hope that there will be an increase in such reports once the bill has become law. The sexual abuse that young boys and girls are subject to in our society must stop. We must protect our children and young people; and we in this House have a role to play. That is what this bill seeks to do.
The Bloc Québécois also believes that sex education is an essential avenue for really protecting young people from sexual exploitation. To that end, the government must translate its good intentions into the bill and its implementation. This bill necessarily implies the investment of sums of money for the sex education of young people everywhere in our society.
Education must not only enable young people to understand their responsibilities in terms of sexuality, whether one thinks of STDs, unwanted pregnancies, or other issues; but it must also give young people the tools to protect themselves against unwanted sexual relations or in a situation of exploitation. Improved methods of sex education could enable children and young people to avoid certain difficult and challenging situations.
Sex education informs, stimulates thought and facilitates informed decision making. Parents, schools and social services must stop tossing the ball back and forth because all of them share the important responsibility of providing for the sex education of children. Effective sex education presumes that adults give messages that have a clear and unambiguous meaning, and that they take into account the age of the child or young person.
We will absolutely have to invest the necessary and appropriate funds in genuine sex education. We hope that when Bill C-22 becomes law we will be able to ensure that young people not only are protected, but also receive appropriate sex education.
Before the bill we are considering is passed, the Bloc Québécois will need assurances that raising the age of consent will not have adverse effects on the very young people we are trying to protect. The Bloc Québécois is concerned about the possibility that relationships between young people that are entirely healthy and legitimate will be criminalized. We are also afraid that the bill will have unforeseen side effects on the physical and mental health of the young people we want to protect.
We will support this bill in principle solely for the purpose of providing better protection for children from sexual predators, and not for the purpose of stigmatizing young people engaged in consensual sexual relationships.