Health committee  Quickly, just to respond to your question about the consultation, we have no recollection of an offer to consult. Stephen, I've just confirmed, took over this portfolio in January 2006. We would not have responded to that request for consultation if it had in fact appeared. Who knows?

Health committee  I just want to respond to the point you made around organizations such as Kali Shiva, which has seen funding cuts. I think that is probably an issue that the health committee could explore separately. But certainly the discussion of harm reduction, in terms of transplant and transmission, is one the Canadian AIDS Society has a lot of experience with, and we would be very interested in exploring that further with you and sharing more information if you need it.

Health committee  Stephen has spoken on behalf of both of us today. I'm just here for questions.

Justice committee  The question I keep writing down to myself as we're talking about this is why should the onus be on youth to protect themselves here? That's why I keep getting this feeling that we're talking about criminalizing youth behaviour through this bill, that we're talking about telling youth what to do.

Justice committee  --and I think if I remember correctly back to that, I certainly wasn't thinking about these types of discussions when I was making decisions around sexual activity. I think we need to focus on the realities that are facing youth through this. I'm not sure if reducing it to 12 years of age is going to make a difference.

Justice committee  I want to respond to Mr. Ménard's question around education and the state of education in schools right now. Currently 16 is the age at which youth are allowed to drop out of high school in all provinces except New Brunswick. I'm sure people in Ontario are aware that there is some discussion about changes to that in Ontario as well.

Justice committee  The Canadian AIDS Society is a coalition of 125 community-based HIV/AIDS organizations that are working on the front lines of responding. Many of them do in fact serve youth through prevention and provide services for youth who are living with HIV/AIDS. In terms of how our policy is built, we have several bodies that assist in that.

Justice committee  Yes.