Mr. Speaker, the member for Wild Rose is accurate to a degree.
I was at one of the Chinese New Year's dinners on the weekend at which I heard something about a partial omission of truth was like a full lie.
Not that I am accusing him of misleading the House, but historically, if we study what happened around the age of consent issue, repeated bills came from the Reform-Alliance and then the Conservatives to raise the age of consent. However, they never put in the near age defence, which allowed people in the same age group to engage in sexual contact without criminalizing that sexual contact.
I remember sitting on a panel with a Conservative member who had sponsored one of the private member's bills. I asked him if he understood that he was about to criminalize 100,000 youth who were 15 and 16 years of age by the bill he had introduced. That was always the problem with it.
I have to take some personal credit. I convinced the former justice minister, when he was in opposition, to support the NDP in saying that we needed to raise the age of consent, but that we needed to put in the near age defence. Then when the Conservatives formed the government, for the first time that showed up in legislation, and it was passed.