The changes to the age of consent policy (under Bill C-2) were implemented in May, 2008. These changes were brought in as part of the Conservative Party’s attempt to crunch down on violent crimes. The change in the age of consent going from 14 years of age to 16 years of age is the first time the age has been changed since 1892.
The reasoning behind this change is the government’s attempt to incorporate harsher penalties and more convictions for sexual predators, and to reduce the occurrence of the exploitation of Canada’s youth population. Unfortunately, this change in law focuses primarily on criminalizing sexual behaviour rather than focussing on protection of children. However the debate to change this age has apparently been in discussions for the past 15 years and was never implemented. Now that Canada’s age of consent is 16 years of age, it is the same as many other countries, such as Britain, Australia, and most of the United States.
One of the other reasons stated for the change in age was to address the issue of internet predators. This brings about a change in section 172.1 of the criminal code, in which people are prosecuted for attempting to lure children over the computer for sexual purposes. Due to the change in age, now anyone under the age of 16 is considered a child, and therefore anyone attempting to attract them over the internet can be convicted of a criminal offense.
-P
2 comments:
I'm a fence-sitter on this change. I realize the attempt made was to protect young people from being taken advantage of, however, I feel that this broad-spectrum change-of-law in a generic age-sense simply hurts young people more. I'm a believer in the South Park mention that the right age to have sex is 17 (it's obviously a joke). However, the law has gone and changed this from a joke to a serious matter. When is the right age to have sex? 16. But the fact of the matter is: young teens have sex. Not all, but some. And I think that it's not at all uncommon or necessarily terribly racy to have a boy-or-girlfriend 2 years older/younger than yourself (even at that age). This new law puts the elder person of this relationship in trouble. Giving someone a criminal record just for...enjoying their teen years seems like the opposite of protection to me.
I agree, young people do have sex, and in reality there is probably very little that the law can actually do to prevent this unless someone tips them off. The area that will protect these teens, who are dating someone 2 years younger, is mentioned in the policy when it discusses a close in age exemption. However, this just states that the person can be no more than 2 years older than their sexual partner, but there is a bit of a foggy area of what if the partner is 2 years and one day older, would that person be convicted of a crime?
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