In June 2019, Bill C-75 passed both houses of the Parliament of Canada and received royal assent, repealing section 159 and making the age of consent equal at 16 for all types of intercourse.
[9][10][11][12][13][14] After being notified of his arrest in Canada, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents searched Beckham's home in Woodlands, Texas, where they discovered a massive quantity of child pornography on his computer, with some depicting children less than 12 years old engaged in sexual acts with adults.
[12] LGBT rights activists criticized the bill because it did not address the issue of equality and maintained the then-current Canadian age of consent for anal sex outside of marriage at 18.
[18] In June 2019, C-75 passed both houses of the Parliament of Canada and received royal assent, which repealed section 159 effective immediately and made the age of consent equal at 16 for all individuals.
[19] The Canadian AIDS Society stated that "increasing the age of consent could result in young people being more secretive about their sexual practices and not seeking out the information they need.
She talked on CTV News Channel's "Mike Duffy Live" where she stated: "What it will do is infringe upon the rights of youth in terms of their ability to make decisions on their own sexuality".
[22] Peter Dudding, executive director of the Child Welfare League of Canada, similarly criticized the bill's effect of removing judicial discretion in cases involving 14- and 15-year-olds: "When we deal with arbitrary cut-offs, we lose the flexibility to apply the law in a much more specific and individualized kind of way.