Madam Speaker, I think all members of the House have a lot of sympathy with the intention behind Bill C-26. People have been sharing personal stories. I will not forget the time that our gift shop on Cape Breton Island was being robbed. We called the RCMP and they said to stay out of the guy's way and they would see when they could get there. We were not able to do anything about the fact that we were robbed. This is a typical story on Cape Breton Island, and nothing against the RCMP, but they tend to take hours to show up.
My own sense of how we respond to this now is that, given technology, the most useful thing in apprehending criminals is the advent of things like cell phone videos. There is an ability to get the evidence and give that to the Mounties later.
I agree that we must provide a statutory defence so that people who try to protect their business or their life and limb are not charged with a criminal offence. The concern I have is that it goes beyond prosecutorial discretion here and, by providing the idea of citizen's arrest, no matter how much we say there is caution, how do we avoid people putting themselves at risk, feeling empowered to make a citizen's arrest without the training to know how to handle a dangerous situation?