Justice committee  The CBA is pleased to have the opportunity to present today on an important equality issue in this area as well. It's an issue that the legal community has been aware of for more than a decade. It's raised now before this committee, because for the first time in some time, Parlia

Justice committee  Thank you very much. I should preface my response by saying I'm certainly not an expert in the committee's procedure, and I would also preface it by saying that the firm view of the CBA is still that the most appropriate response to section 159 would be a complete repeal. So I

Justice committee  Yes. The CBA takes the firm position that real equality requires the complete repeal. There are other aspects of section 159 that are also problematic for other reasons. So a complete repeal really would be the only full and workable solution.

Justice committee  We haven't considered the issue in any formal way, and we have no submission, really, to make on the issue, but I perhaps can sort of flesh it out a little bit. The obligations that a doctor would face to report fall under provincial legislation, child and family protective legi

Justice committee  I appreciate that the question was directed at me, but Ms. Gallagher is more an expert on the criminal issues, so I'll defer to her.

Justice committee  I have heard that argument. I believe it was part of the submissions from EGALE Canada and possibly other groups. It would be speculative for me to give an opinion on a charter issue on that, so there's not much that I can say on it. What I can say is that the CBA does support t

Justice committee  Off the top of my head, I'm trying to think of a situation where it has been raised. There are American cases—they wouldn't be precisely the same—on the availability of close-in-age exemptions for same-sex sexual conduct on the same grounds as opposite-sex sexual conduct, but tha