Mr. Speaker, when asked by the media whether he would do the same thing again, David Chen said he probably would not. When asked what he would do if the incident happened again, he said that he would call the police.
Shoplifters still come into his store. He has a video camera in his store and he takes photos of the shoplifters and puts them on display. It is public shaming in a way. He works very closely with the police.
One of the consequences of the whole incident is that community-based policing in Toronto's Chinatown is much better. People are now working closely together so that the police response is faster and the store owners understand that they should call the police and make sure police officers are notified first.
It is a learning experience for some store owners. I am glad that lesson is learned, but that does not justify what happened to David Chen and all the things he went through. However, he wants to tell the other store owners to wait for the police to come, if they can.