Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on Bill C-60, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, which addresses the issues of citizen's arrest, defence of property and defence of persons.
I would like to begin by addressing the reforms to the law of self-defence and defence of property. Defences arise when a person is alleged to have committed a criminal offence. The availability of a defence means that, although a person did commit an act that would otherwise be a crime, he or she should not be convicted for it because of some other circumstance amounting to a defence at law. If a person is defending themself from an attack or defending their property from being stolen, they might need to behave in a way that would normally attract criminal responsibility, such as an assault against the person threatening them. The defences are the law's way of balancing the generally applicable offences with exceptional circumstances that can validate the commission of crimes.
In the McIntosh case in 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a very stark assessment of the law of self-defence. Here is what former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer had to say:
I would observe that ss. 34 and 35 of the Criminal Code are highly technical, excessively detailed provisions deserving of much criticism. These provisions overlap, and are internally inconsistent in certain respects.... It is to be expected that trial judges may encounter difficulties in explaining the provisions to a jury, and that jurors may find them confusing.
Chief Justice Lamer went on to say:
I am of the view that any interpretation which attempts to make sense of the provisions will have some undesirable or illogical results. It is clear that legislative action is required to clarify the Criminal Code’s self-defence regime.
Confusing law is not just a matter of passing concern; when laws are difficult to understand, there are real consequences. People will not be able to read the law and understand the rules that govern their conduct; and police will have a difficult time assessing whether a person has a valid defence for the conduct and may end up laying charges just to be on the safe side, in the hope that the court will sort out the confusion.
I have spoken with dozens of police officers who have told me that this is exactly what they do. I believe that this is probably what happened in the case of Mr. Chen. The police were faced with a series of confusing provisions in the Criminal Code. Their duty is to uphold the law, and so their duty is to lay a charge and seek the court's determination. That is what they did in this case.
That is why these types of cases and these provisions in the Criminal Code really require very close scrutiny, and that is what Bill C-60 is intended to do.
Prosecutors and defence counsel will spend considerable time making arguments about the meaning and the scope of the law; courts will have tremendous difficulty explaining the law to juries; juries will be asked to apply laws that even lawyers and judges do not fully understand; and even if the jury comes to the right conclusion, there are likely to be grounds for the losing party to appeal, causing delay in the final resolution of the outcome for the person charged, and the cost to the justice system will be significant and unnecessary.
We are right to be concerned about confusing laws. It is Parliament's duty to ensure that the law is accessible and clear to all Canadians. The time has come to do so in regard to these provisions.
When we looked at these provisions, we realized that there were nine provisions in the Criminal Code that were very confusing and, in some ways, contradictory. And when we looked further into it, we realized that these provisions of the Criminal Code had not actually been substantially revised since 1960. Thus it was the right time to do so.
The case of Mr. Chen was certainly a catalyst for change and gave rise to an opportunity for us to examine these provisions. However, when we actually sat down and spoke to shop owners, and here I hope that the member for Winnipeg North who spoke previously had an opportunity to do so in his city, we came to the conclusion that there was a lot more that needed to be fixed than just the timing of the citizen's arrest provision.
Prior to and after the Supreme Court of Canada's pronouncements in the McIntosh case, there were numerous attempts to reform the law.
First, the former Law Reform Commission of Canada proposed in 1987 a re-codified general part of the Criminal Code, the part that contains many general rules, such as the defences and rules surrounding participation in crime. This report included a reformed law of self-defence and defence of property.
The Canadian Bar Association also produced a report in 1992 for a reformed general part of the code and proposed a slightly different, but vastly simpler, defence of the person and defence of property.
Around the same time, the Department of Justice issued a white paper that was a draft of a new general part of the Criminal Code. It included yet another version of a simplified defence for self-defence and defence of person.
Again in 1998, the Department of Justice consulted with Canadians on various ways in which the defences could be simplified and clarified. However, law reform never came until now.
Bill C-60 presents the first legislative response in many decades to the confusing law on self-defence and defence of property. In a nutshell, the legislation seeks to simplify both defences in order to provide clear guidance to Canadians about what they can do in an emergency situation where they are forced by a threat to themselves or their property.
Simpler laws will provide better guidance to police officers who are called to the scene of a crime, who will, as a result, be better able to make appropriate decisions about whether charges are warranted or not. Simpler laws will also allow courts to instruct juries in a sensible manner. This will reduce successful appeals and retrials, saving the justice system unnecessary time and expense.
The proposed new law of self-defence will boil down to a few simple considerations: did the person reasonably perceive that they or another person was being threatened with force, or were they actually being assaulted; did they respond for the purpose of protecting themselves or the other person from that force; did they act reasonably in the circumstances?
These are the key components that permit a person to do what would otherwise be criminal, whether it be using force against force, or doing something else such as breaking into a property to escape an attacker. These components are very similar to those that are currently part of the law of self-defence, but the defence in Bill C-60 provides a single, simple, general rule. The law on the books today, by contrast, is based on the same basic principles but is written in a very complicated and overly detailed way.
Why does the law need to be more complicated than these three principles? The answer is that it does not. One new feature of the defence of persons is the addition of a non-exhaustive list of factors to help guide the judge or jury in determining whether the conduct was reasonable in the circumstances.
Our government believes this additional feature will be welcomed by the courts, which will be called upon to interpret the law and instruct juries on a more simple defence. The factors on the list are well known in the case law dealing with self-defence, because they often arise in all kinds of different cases.
The list will include the nature of the force that was threatened and the proportionality of the response to it, whether there were weapons present and whether the parties had a pre-existing relationship, including in particular whether there were previous incidents of violence.
This last factor will be particularly important in cases where a battered spouse uses force. As the Supreme Court has noted in the landmark case of Lavallee, it is sometimes difficult for a jury to understand how a battered spouse might stay in a relationship or how they might come to understand the patterns of violence of their partner.
The list of factors to consider will help ground the jury's consideration of the facts by clearly identifying this factor, among others, as relevant to its assessment of reasonableness.
The current defence of property scheme has the same flaws as those of self-defence. There are too many overlapping provisions that set out specific situations and they are far too complicated to know which to apply and in what circumstances.
The reform proposed in Bill C-60 would dramatically simplify the law by setting out one single general rule for the defence. The same level of protection that is currently provided by five separate defences would be captured in one simplified defence. In the simplest of terms, a person will be able to do what is reasonable in the circumstances to protect property in their possession from being taken, destroyed or trespassed upon.
Bill C-60 expands the time in which a property owner can arrest a person who is committing an offence in relation to their property. This change will bring flexibility to the power of citizen's arrest, which will complement the other reforms in the bill by helping Canadians to protect their interests when the situation calls for urgent action.
I think all members can agree that clear and simple defences and a citizen's arrest law that provides flexibility for variations in the circumstances will allow all Canadians to take necessary and reasonable steps when the circumstances leave them with no other reasonable options.
I urge all members to support this important legislation.
If time allows, I would like to distinguish for all of the members present today the difference between Bill C-60 and the two private members' bills.
As I mentioned in my remarks, the government's bill is broader in scope. It clarifies and simplifies the law of self-defence and defence of property, and would expand the provisions governing citizen's arrest. The two private members' bills deal only with citizen's arrest.
With respect to the reforms to the citizen's arrest provisions, the government's bill would expand the time period for a citizen to make an arrest, but in a carefully and articulated way so as not to invite citizens to make such arrests where it is instead feasible and advisable for the police to do so.
Bill C-565, the NDP bill, proposes to allow a person to make a citizen's arrest of another person whom, on reasonable grounds, he or she believes has committed an offence and where the arrest occurs within a reasonable time following commission of the offence.
Bill C-547, the Liberal private member's bill proposed by the member for Eglinton—Lawrence, proposes amendments similar to Bill C-565 but without the reasonable time requirement.
Perhaps the member for Winnipeg Centre may want to read his colleague's bill. He mentioned something about reasonable time for a citizen's arrest, but that is not even included in that bill.
These two private members' bills would allow for a citizen's arrest based on reasonable grounds that an offence has been committed. However, there is no time limit within which this belief must be formed and the time could extend to weeks or months later.
The government's proposal, requiring that the arrester find someone committing an offence and make the arrest within a reasonable time only when it is not feasible in the circumstances for a peace officer to make the arrest, is more limited and more responsible. It does not equate the citizen's arrest power with that of the police.
