If Bill C-26 passes, I'm not sure what kinds of constraints you can put on private security, because they are being imagined as private citizens. Then the question becomes what type of private security and in what capacity are you talking about? Are you talking about forensic accounts? Are you talking about investigators? Are you talking about...and under what circumstances? It becomes a very difficult thing.
The problem we have here, I think, is that we've inherited something that is based upon the idea of sort of the frankpledge system and everyone being responsible for their own policing, and the idea of police as a public good, and the notion of the private citizen as being the first defence against criminality and disorder. That's a 19th century notion and in fact actually it's a 14th century notion, if you go far enough back, that has made its way through the common law.
But what's not in the law is any recognition of the distinction between the private citizen and this massive industry called the private security sector. Until that is somehow resolved, until there is some legislative recognition of the important distinction between David Chen and Intelligarde International or some other aggressive parapolicing organization, these issues are going to have to repeatedly come forward.
Either the distinction can be made legislatively or it can be made by the courts down the road. So far the courts haven't made much of a distinction, to my mind.