Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill C-26, which amends subsection 494(2) of the Criminal Code, dealing with citizen's arrest.
First I want to say that the New Democrats support the bill. It is actually something that my fellow New Democrat, the member for Trinity—Spadina, had been advocating for quite some time.
Half of the bill proposes measures that her private member's bill had previously called for. My colleague introduced that legislation, which was known as the Lucky Moose bill, in response to an incident that happened in the city of Toronto in 2009. David Chen, the owner of the Lucky Moose Food Mart in Toronto, apprehended and restrained a man, Anthony Bennett, a few hours after he had stolen from his store. When police arrived, they charged Mr. Chen with kidnapping, carrying a dangerous weapon—which was a box cutter, which most grocery store workers would carry normally—assault and forcible confinement. Crown prosecutors later dropped the kidnapping charge, but proceeded with the charges of forcible confinement and assault.
According to the Criminal Code as it is currently written, a property owner can only make a citizen's arrest if the alleged wrongdoer is caught in the act. Clearly, this portion of the Criminal Code needed to be changed. My colleague saw that and introduced her private member's bill, and the government followed suit with its own very similar bill.
What surprises me most about this bill is that the Conservatives are proposing something in the realm of public safety that actually makes sense. It is very surprising that they are proposing something that is sensible, because what we have seen from the government, from the Conservatives' crime agenda, certainly does not make any sense at all. Most of the time the Conservatives seem to be living in some kind of alternative reality, completely devoid of factual information and common sense when it comes to crime.
Normally, instead of answering critical questions about a reckless public safety agenda that is destined for failure, the Minister of Public Safety has preferred to hurl accusations and insults across the floor, such as standing in the House and accusing me of supporting child molesters because I questioned the complete failure on the side of the government to estimate the cost of its reckless crime agenda.
Sadly, we know that the facts do not really matter to the government. In Senate committee hearings on Bill C-10, the public safety minister told senators to ignore the facts. He said, “I don't know if the statistics demonstrate that crime is down. I'm focused on danger”.
That was not the first time we have been told to ignore the facts by Conservatives when it comes to crime. In response to questions about Bill C-10, the Minister of Justice said, “We are not governing on the basis of the latest statistics”. When it comes to public safety, ignoring the facts seems to be in the Conservatives' talking points.
Of course they want us to ignore the facts, because the facts are on our side. The facts will tell us that their crime agenda will cripple our criminal justice system and will not make our communities any safer.
I am happy to see that the Conservatives actually support something worthwhile, Bill C-26, but this, unfortunately, is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to the Conservatives' approach to crime. While I support this bill, which has been improved by NDP amendments in committee, I remain very concerned about the safety of our communities across this wonderful country of ours.
The NDP priority in reviewing this legislation was to ensure that it did not encourage vigilante justice or people putting their own safety at risk. While we understand that there are concerns about these matters in relation to citizen's arrest, self-defence and defence of property, we have determined that the bill proposes acceptable changes.
It should be noted that all three of these concepts already exist in the Criminal Code. Therefore, the changes made by this bill would only modify aspects of our current laws and do not introduce anything radically new.
The justice committee heard from a diverse group of witnesses while considering this legislation, including the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Police Association, academics and practising lawyers. Although New Democrats have already supported the intent of this legislation, we have brought forward a number of amendments in accordance with recommendations of witnesses. One successful amendment we brought forward will place a greater onus on the courts to consider the history of the relationship between the individuals.
We recognize the great need for these sections of the Criminal Code to be updated, and although most of our amendments were defeated, we still believe this bill accomplishes an adequate update to the legislation and we support this bill. Also, legal experts the committee heard from were, in general, supportive of the proposed changes to the self-defence and defence of property sections of the Criminal Code. They all acknowledged that these clarifications were absolutely necessary.
In conclusion, I want to thank my colleague from Trinity—Spadina for her work on this issue and for bringing such a worthwhile issue to the House. I also want to thank the minister and members across the aisle for their support to bring this initiative forward. As I have mentioned, we do not often see anything sensible coming from that side of the House when it comes to crime. In fact, when it comes to crime, the Conservatives are usually detached from being sensibile altogether and pursue an approach that has been tried and has failed.
I hope to see the members opposite keen to adopt more New Democratic ideas in the future. We have many that I think make a lot of sense and are aimed at making our communities safer for all Canadians to live in.