Mr. Speaker, Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and the U.K. have 16 as the minimum wage below which no one can marry, even with parental consent. This is consistent with the approach in the bill that we are debating here today.
Several like-minded countries have set 18 as the age of marriage without additional consent from parents or the courts, but have no minimum age of marriage, for example, Belgium, France, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and most of the United States. This is similar to the current law in Canada.
Setting a national minimum age of 16 years for marriage is consistent with the current federal legislation that applies only with regard to the province of Quebec. It is also consistent with what happens now in Canada, where very few provinces have set that. It does fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government to set this minimum age.