The federal government has issued notice that it will table legislation in the coming days to repeal a provision of the Criminal Code that bans Canadians from engaging in anal intercourse and creates a distinction between anal intercourse and other forms of sexual activity.

Section 159 of Canada’s Criminal Code reads: “Every person who engages in an act of anal intercourse is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years, or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.”

The provision provides an exception for heterosexual married couples and for any two people 18 years of age or older who both consent to engaging in anal sex. The age of consent for other sexual activity in Canada is 16 years — 18 years for sexual activity involving prostitution or pornography, or one that “occurs in a relationship of authority, trust or dependency,” such as with a teacher, coach or babysitter.

The government provided a heads-up in last Thursday’s notice paper about “an Act related to the repeal of Section 159 of the Criminal Code.” The Department of Justice issued a news release Monday afternoon saying Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould will make an announcement regarding Section 159 in the House of Commons at 10:10 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Canada’s LGBT community calls Section 159 discriminatory and unconstitutional, and has been urging the government for years to repeal the ban. A report published in June by Egale, a national LGBT charity, says the ban is still in effect in five provinces and the three territories.

Ontario’s Court of Appeal was the first to find Section 159 unconstitutional in the late 1990s, saying the law violated Section 15 of the Canadian Charter by discriminating on the basis of age. Appellate courts in Quebec, Alberta, B.C. and Nova Scotia, and at the federal level, followed suit.

The report states police have taken advantage of the law’s ambiguity and continue to use it to charge Canadian citizens.

“Between 2008 and 2014 in Ontario, 22 people were charged with anal intercourse under Section 159,” the report reads.

The report also says Canadian gay rights activists were “mortified” that the Harper government did not address Section 159 when it revisited the age of consent for sexual activity in 2008.

A former NDP member of Parliament did try to have the ban revoked more than five years ago. Joe Comartin introduced a private member’s bill in February 2011 that sought to repeal Section 159 but Bill C-628 never made it to the first round of debate.