Mr. Speaker, I know my hon. colleague said that he was seeking answers to why the government has added what appear to be unnecessary provisions to this bill. I will suggest a possible answer for him and I would like his comment on it.
The issue that spawned this was when Mr. Chen arrested someone after the commission of an offence but within a reasonable time. My colleague from Trinity—Spadina quickly drafted a private member's bill, Bill C-565, which dealt exactly with that scenario. It would have amended the Criminal Code to permit a citizen to arrest someone, not only during the commission of an offence but within a reasonable time. Had we stopped there, the problem would have been solved.
However, if the government had adopted that common sense solution, it would have given the New Democrats credit for fixing the solution, which it could not tolerate. Instead, it had to draft a bill to add two further and unnecessary aspects to this bill, which is to radically alter the way we deal with self defence of person and property in this country.
I would submit for my hon. colleague that the reason the government did this was that it did not want anybody else in this House, be it the Liberal Party, the New Democrats or the Bloc, taking meaningful measures that protect community. In the government's view, it is the only one that can do that. Of course, Canadians know that is not the case.
Could my hon. colleague comment on that as being a potential theory as to why the government added two very unusual aspects to this bill that were not called upon by the situation of Mr. Chen and which cause more confusion than any solutions they offer?