Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague did some important work on this issue, along with my colleague from Trinity—Spadina, when Mr. Chen's situation came to the attention of members in the House.
My hon. colleague quite rightfully identified the absolute injustice of the store owner finding himself charged after doing nothing more than apprehend someone who had been continually robbing him. This was due to the Criminal Code's peculiar wording at the time, which basically said that one could only apprehend a person if that person was caught in the commission of an offence.
The private member's bills of my colleague from Trinity—Spadina and the hon. member sought to cure that situation by extending the time period for citizen's arrest to a reasonable period of time.
How does my hon. colleague feel about the other provisions the government has seen fit to introduce into this legislation which go far beyond that and actually alter the law by codifying the defence of property and defence of persons provisions? Does he think it might be better to simply deal with the original problem that was caused by the Chen situation and pass that legislation instead of dealing with other sections of the bill which we really do not know what the implications would be?