Thank you, Chair.
Obviously, having former police officers and lawyers on this committee makes it interesting. I think Mr. Wilks' comments about rural areas are really important. We're all concerned about empowering a posse, for example, to hunt down somebody who you happen to know committed a crime but we don't know where he is. This concern about temporal restrictions ought to be looked at seriously.
In the Chen case the facts are difficult and so was the result, because the whole issue here was delay. The delay was papered over by a factual finding of a continuing offence. But the delay issue is still there. I'm personally sympathetic to that issue. I like the idea of a temporal limit of reasonableness. I also like the idea of a geographical limit.
I'm worried about the posse issue. I'm worried about the scenarios you've outlined, where some entrepreneurial private investigators decide they'll just take the pictures, do their investigation, wait three or four weeks, and then arrest them. That might not be a reasonable period of time. But that kind of investigative activity might actually take place and they'll make an opportunistic arrest, as opposed to an immediate one. I think the sense is that the delay was really only because the person wasn't there. You still have to act quickly, in my view.
You don't like the bill, so maybe you're not going to help us, but is there a way of amending the proposed legislation to help with these questions—geographical, temporal—and the requirement of immediacy? If there's going to be a citizen's arrest it has to be the next day when the guy who stole your watch shows up. You can't say, “Okay, I got him. I'll take his picture today. Next week when I have my hefty buddies with me I'll arrest him.” You can't have that.
Is there a way of amending this to fix it, or is it impossible?