That's a very great question. It's one that I've had officers point out to me in the different cities I visited where they've dealt with these kinds of situations.
What they tell me very clearly is that, in these kinds of situations, there's an element of people—and these are the people who we're looking to deal with in this bill—who are looking to cause trouble. They come to a public gathering knowing that there will be some cover for them to engage in the kinds of criminal acts they're looking to engage in, and they come prepared with a complete tool kit. Certainly you can find sites on the Internet that coach people on how to do this kind of activity. They'll come prepared with the kit, including the disguise. There may be, as I said earlier, marbles to toss under the legs of police horses. There may be bricks or other objects that they'll throw at police, hammers they'll use to break the store windows, and other kinds of tools that they will use.
Police will witness the individuals with their knapsacks. They'll see them putting on disguises. They'll see them with the tools. Then they'll witness these kinds of activities taking place. They'll witness individuals leaving the scene and removing their disguises as they go. If they know that this kind of criminal activity has taken place, they know that likely these individuals were involved in it, but they're not able to actually identify the individuals who committed specific acts.
You specifically mentioned the Vancouver incident. They have video evidence and photographic evidence where they can clearly see these kinds of activities taking place, and they're done by individuals who are disguised, so they're not able to actually lay charges.
I think it comes back again to the police being able to protect public safety, because they've declared the situation to be an unlawful assembly, or they've declared it to be riot. They know that this activity is happening, or is about to happen, and will likely intensify. They can deal with individuals who they see are very clearly gearing up to engage in that kind of trouble, and hopefully what that will do then, of course, is protect the safety of the public and prevent damages to property, prevent damages to businesses, and prevent assaults on individuals by deterring it from ever happening, because these people will think twice about disguising themselves.
That's the first and foremost hope. So that will be the main thing, and then, secondly, it allows the police the opportunity to hopefully be able to lay more charges on those who are involved, because they're actually able to identify them.