I would say it's not a good idea to legislate on the basis of one horrible example that with a little more discretion would have avoided the situation.
I don't know where the one-hour thing comes from. The legislation that's proposed suggests a reasonable delay. Reasonable delay doesn't say one hour. It could be the next day. It could be a week later. The concern is that this will not be used by the little shopkeepers, but will be used generally by agencies. It extends very much the power of agencies acting for the benefit of individuals, and that is a concern to us.
The last point I want to make on this Rambo issue is that the concern we have is not that shopkeepers will turn into Rambos. I don't think anybody seriously believes that. The concern is that if we encourage individuals to engage in this activity, unfortunate events will occur. Already when police are involved in arrests, the events are very delicate and very difficult. We've had in Montreal recently the arrests of people who have mental health issues, and people died—from little meaningless events, which degenerated in the course of an arrest, and that's with police who are trained. That is our concern.
Our concern is that the little shopkeeper will not only be the victim of a theft, but worse, because of that type of event. We're concerned that if we encourage individuals to do this we'll have those risks. That is what our concern is. It's not that individuals who want to protect their little business be charged. It's a terrible thing to do that. The concern here is that with this type of legislation, innocent, good, honest people, who are simply trying to do what they believe is right, will perhaps suffer terrible consequences because the person who's committing the shoplifting may be on drugs, may be out of his or her mind. They may react in a horrible way, where police should be acting. That is the concern.