Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-22, dealing with the age of consent. There always has to be a few dissenting voices, so I will be one of them.
As we know, the current age of consent in Canada is 14, and there are already very strict provisions in the Criminal Code for youth. They provide protection for youth between 14 and 18 from exploitative relationships that involve a person in authority or trust. I know the bill speaks about the protection of youth, but I would argue that provisions are already in the Criminal Code to provide this kind of protection.
We also have very strict provisions in the Criminal Code that prohibit activities related to prostitution for anyone under 18, and I am very familiar with these provisions. I was on the all party committee that dealt with prostitution. It very strongly believed that there should be strong criminal sanctions against prostitution activities, sexual exploitation of youth under 18. There are also very strict provisions regarding pornography. Therefore, these are already covered in the Criminal Code.
I know from the messages, the emails and the people to whom I have spoken in my community and elsewhere across Canada, people are very concerned about the exploitation, harm, violence and coercion that can exist, whether it is in a sexual relationship or not, and the protection of young people generally. I concur with that. It is a very serious issue in our society and it is something on which we should focus.
The problem I have with the bill is it goes way beyond that because it is a very sweeping bill. It goes much further in laying down a regime that becomes kind of a generic law, which will criminalize some sexual activity for young people. We have to look at that and distinguish where there are harms and where there are not, where there is consenting activity and where there is not.
I know at committee, Andrea Cohen, who is the president of the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, which I believe was formerly called Planned Parenthood, an organization with which we are very familiar, made it very clear that the Federation for Sexual Health was not for the legislation. She said:
We believe it's a rather crude instrument to deal with a pretty complex issue, which human sexual behaviour is, particularly around youth.
She laid out three concerns to the committee, which she felt needed to be addressed.
The first was that young people, because of the bill, would not be feel comfortable about seeking information around sexual health services because of fear of a lack of accountability. I think the concern is if the bill is approved, young people will be less likely to seek sexual health information or advice if they know their activities are outside of the law.
Ms. Cohen also laid out a concern about:
The perception or reality that a young person or his or her partner would be reported to authorities and prosecuted for consensual sexual activity outside of the five-year limit will result in sexually active youth not seeking or getting the health services they need.
I know this concern was very much echoed by the Canadian AIDS Society and the Elizabeth Fry Society as well.
The second concern of the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health was that the increased age of consent could be used as a justification for denying young people the sexual health education services they needed. Its concern was that it may actually place educators and health professionals in a very difficult position in that they may be reluctant to enter into conversations or exchange information with young people, under the proposed new age of consent, due to the uncertainty about their own legal obligations. We should be very concerned about this. We are in an environment where young people will be very reluctant possibly to come forward and to seek the kind of health advice, information, support and counselling they need.
The third concern of the federation was it pointed out that the Criminal Code included a clause that set the age of consent for anal sex at 18 years, which is higher than for any other type of sexual activity. It pointed out that there was no logical or medical reason to treat one type of sexual activity differently than the others.
Those were the concerns that the federation laid out. The NDP justice critic, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, tried very hard in committee to get them addressed. He tried to get amendments in the bill that would reflect these concerns, but unfortunately they were not permitted, leaving us with a flawed bill. I thank the member for trying to get those.
Members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community have also expressed their very serious reservations about the bill. People are concerned that this will lead us into a much more moralistic attitude and that will prevail. People are concerned that consensual sexual activities will be targeted, particularly in the GLBT community where there has been a history of prosecutions.
The government wants to raise the age of consent, and that is the main message in the bill. The message around the close in age exemption is not getting out. The main message is that the age of consent will be raised to 16. We have to be very concerned about the message that the bill sends out because it may create an environment where young people become very insecure and uncertain about their own rights and what they can and cannot do.
I also want to draw attention to another good presentation that was made at committee from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which raised a couple of concerns. This needs to be seen in a broader context over a lot of the legislation that we see from the Conservative government. The association said at committee:
—Bill C-22 represents a fundamental shift of policy and attitude toward sexuality. In 1992, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the Butler decision dealing with the definition of obscenity, signalled a fundamental shift from the legislation of morality to the legislation of harm.
This is a very important issue. Some members do not want to think about the direction that some of this legislation is taking. Since the Butler decision, there has been an emphasis to enact legislation that focuses on harm and the protection of individual rights, particularly where there are consenting activities. There is now a concern that this legislation will take us in another direction. We should be willing to debate this and to look at the implications and the consequences of that kind of direction. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association made an argument based on public policy and how it could change over the years.
The association also raised a concern that in the absence of evidence of harm, the rush to get through this bill is an unconsidered response to a moral objection rather than a legislative response to harms that have been shown. This is an important point.
I have heard some of the debate by Conservative members. I know they feel very strongly about their point of view, and I respect that. However, we have to also put on the table whether the legislation will accomplish what they are seeking to do, which is to protect young people from violence, exploitation, predators, rather than to put down this blanket that will criminalize youthful sexual activity even if it is consenting. That is my main concern about the bill.
The bill would criminalize consensual sexual activity for some 14 and 15 year olds. It sends a message of moral attitude and judgment rather than focus on harm and exploitation, which are issues with which we seriously need to be deal.
In the real world, teenagers do have sex. They do have sex with older people. Despite what the member for Wild Rose said, I think he said that kids were dumb, we have to recognize what this bill may end up doing in terms of the very people it seeks to protect.
This bill is flawed. I believe that it will tend to drive issues of youth sexuality underground. It will cause young people to be less open about what they need to protect themselves, and their sexual health and their sexuality.
I do not support the bill for those reasons. I do not support the approach being taken by the Conservative government. I do not support this kind of broad-sweeping legislation that I think will criminalize sexual activities of youth and will not in any way ensure their protection from predators. I have a great deal of skepticism about the bill.
Today I have heard members say that something like 80% of the population supports this measure. I do not know whether that is true or not. I am sure it is high. But, again, I think it is based on a very strong and legitimate concern about protecting young people from exploitation and predators, whether it is through pornography, prostitution or random sexual relationships.
However, I really feel that this legislation would take us beyond that, into a direction that would end up criminalizing young people who do not need to be criminalized and would actually put them into an environment where they would be less open about what is going on and less likely to come forward and actually seek protection and health.
I realize that is not a popular thing to say, but I do think it needs to be said. I think we should have very sober thoughts about this bill and what it would do. I have considered it very seriously and I have actually struggled with it, as have other members of the NDP caucus.
There are a majority of members of our caucus who support this bill, but nevertheless I feel that as a member of Parliament I have an obligation to put forward a view. I think there are some issues here that need to be addressed and for the reasons that I have outlined, I find that I cannot support this bill, not because I do not believe that children should not be protected, they should, but because I do not believe this bill would actually accomplish that.