Just to clarify a few things about the age of consent in Canada... as it is relevent to why he isn't or was't charged with a sex crime.

The Government elected to place the age of consent at 14 to avoid the attempt by irate parents to punish their kids who had consentual sex with an older person, ie someone say who was 15 having sex with someone 16 or even 17. It was not nor is meant to be a case of older men Dale's age being allowed to have sex, but that is the downside to the law.

It was enacted because our governement recognized that teenagers are sexually active and that a hormone crazed teenager at 16 or 17 or 18 isn't going to think about such things. By placing the limit at 14, the hope was to remove the notion that parents could get back at the fiend who deflowered their precious innocent.

Secondly it was to avoid labelling such a juvenile as a sex offender for the rest of their life because some irate parent conned a prosecutor or some prosecutor decided to make a name for themself.

At the present time our brand of republicans are attempting to use that case and others as a reason for increasing the age to 16, there by once again creating the situation the law was designed to eliminate. It isn't perfect but at least we here are trying to accept reality. Kids have sex, we know it and the responsibility has to lie with the parents and not the court system to deal with over active teenage hormones. Hey, least that was the reason then.

As for the case regarding Dale, there were other charges levied according to the articles, which are supposed to cover those cases such as this one.

Anyhow, just some of the reasoning behind the 14 age limit.