Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions.
I know where the minister is coming from on this, but the message he is giving to the public on how he is going to protect citizens in a number of circumstances perplexes me. The first is protecting the citizen who is engaging in a false arrest. The second is protecting the person who is being falsely arrested, Does he not think he is encouraging an environment for vigilantism? Also, how does the person engaging in the arrest of a citizen know what reasonable force is?
The minister mentioned that a person could do this when a police officer was not around. However, does this not run counter to what the police are telling individuals, that they should be very careful in trying to engage in an arrest when individuals possibly engaging in criminal activity could use force and hurt the person trying to intervene? We have seen many cases where this has happened.
I would be very interested to learn how the minister is going to deal with those issues under those circumstances.