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Laws giving greater protection to children
from sexual predators were among the most family-friendly
pieces of legislation passed during the session of Parliament
which ended earlier this month when Prime Minister Stephen
Harper called a federal election.
Bill C-2 raised the age of sexual consent
in Canada from 14 to 16 years of age. It also made it
illegal for someone 16 or younger to be sexually active
with someone else who is more than five years older
than they are. Also passed into law was C-277, a private
member’s bill proposed by Conservative MP Ed Fast
that doubled the maximum sentence for luring a child
from five to 10 years.
Most of the other family-friendly measures
passed by this Parliament were contained in the three
budgets introduced by the Harper government since 2006.
These included the Universal Childcare Plan that gave
families $100 per month for every child under the age
of six, a $2,000 child tax credit, a lengthening by
10 years of the period during which parents can invest
in a Registered Education Savings Plan and the length
of time that children can benefit from it, a new Registered
Disability Savings Plan to help parents save for the
future financial needs of their special needs children,
a $500 tax credit to encourage parents to enrol their
children in physical fitness programs, and an increase
in the amount of tax-exempt income for two-parent, single-income
families.
As well, Parliament passed the government’s
Bill C-36, which allows couples receiving old-age security
to split pension income, thereby lowering their tax
burden as a couple.
But a number of other bills of interest
to families failed when Parliament was dissolved, including
two that sought to toughen the laws against child pornography.
C-388, from Liberal MP Mario Silva, would have made
the sharing of child pornography illegal. And C-430,
from Conservative MP Pierre Lemieux, would have denied
people charged with possessing child pornography the
right to argue they should not be convicted because
they intended to use it solely for artistic or educational
purposes.
Also dying on the Order Paper were:
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C-338 by Liberal MP Paul Steckle,
which would have made it illegal for a woman to
have an abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation
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C-484 by Conservative MP Ken Epp.
It sought to make it a crime to injure, kill or
attempt to kill an unborn child during the commission
of a crime against the mother;
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C-562 by Bloc Québécois
MP Francine Lalonde. It sought to allow, within
limits, a medical practitioner to help hasten the
death of someone either terminally ill or in severe
and unrelieved physical or mental pain, when that
person had expressed an informed wish to die.
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S-207 by Liberal Senator Céline
Hervieux-Payette. It would have repealed Section
43 from the Criminal Code, which allows parents,
guardians and teachers to use reasonable force as
a last resort in disciplining young children.
CFAC would add - Bill C10 which would
have given better prevention of your tax dollars from
going to sex and violent movies and other “arts”
died also after Senate played games and sent it back
to parliament. This Bill had some very important tax
changes too.
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