House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 24% of the vote.
Business of Supply April 26th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her speech and the answers she provided. On this side of the House, we believe, as all the experts do, that the system is sustainable.
Could the hon. member perhaps elaborate on the fact that experts have said that our system is sustainable?
Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act April 25th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.
It certainly shows the kind of results we can achieve when the parties work together. If we work together, we will have better laws. When the members opposite accuse us of all kinds of rather silly things, when the Minister of Justice, or the Minister of Public Safety, say things like “you are either with us or with the criminals”, it does not help us do our job. Furthermore, such comments have no place here in the House.
Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act April 25th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, we as a society can do a better job of educating the public on a whole raft of different issues, not just citizen's arrest, but preventive health, tax code or a number of situations.
However, I would like to turn it back to the member and ask, if the Liberals feel that the bill is lacking in this kind of way, have they proposed, or will they be proposing, amendments to insert such language into the legislation?
Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act April 25th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the member was listening. Nowhere did I say I was opposed to the legislation. In fact, we are supporting it.
What is absolutely surprising to me is to hear the member from his side of the floor, the Conservatives, now saying that judges should be able to apply their judgment. Time and time again we have seen the government attempt to make changes to actually take that discretion out of judges' hands with mandatory minimum sentences. That is the kind of thing that takes the law out of the hands of the experts and the people who should be applying sentences, who should be taking into account the circumstances of offences, criminal history, behaviour of individuals and reasonableness of the judgments being made.
This is the government that is taking that discretion out of judges' hands. I think it is a little hypocritical to hear the member make that kind of statement now.
Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act April 25th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the member for Toronto—Danforth to the House and congratulate him on his new portfolio as deputy critic for justice. This is the quality of debate and the type of thoughtful, reasonable and well-researched remarks that we can expect from this member after just a few short weeks. I cannot wait to see what he will be capable of in a year or two.
I am pleased to have an opportunity today to speak on Bill C-26, an act to amend the Criminal Code in relation to citizen's arrest and the defences of property and persons. In reality, the heart of this bill came from the New Democratic Party, specifically from the member for Trinity—Spadina. We need to pay tribute to her work because she put in place many of the aspects of the legislation before us.
I would also like to note that it is nice to see that for once the Conservatives are willing to accept a good idea from the opposition. I certainly wish the Conservatives would adopt more of our good ideas. If they had, of course, there would be not be 90,000 more unemployed families. If the Conservatives had taken our advice, we would not have the highest debt load of Canadian families in history. If they had taken our suggestions and listened to the NDP, then we would not have seen a real wage reduction of 2%.
Going back to the bill, it has its origins in the attention brought to a citizen's arrest two years ago at the Lucky Moose Food Mart in downtown Toronto, as many members have already stated. The owner of this store was a persistent victim of shoplifting. A shoplifter who was seen in his store walking away with some property apparently came back an hour or so later. Based on his experience in trying to get the police to respond to shoplifting events in the store, the owner felt that the only way to actually have this fellow charged was to apprehend him himself. As a result, the owner was charged with assaulting the individual and forcible confinement. This case caused a lot of controversy, some of which had to do with whether policing was sufficient in the area.
We know that in larger establishments like chain supermarkets and retail stores there are often paid security services. They have the resources to better protect themselves. These paid security services have training in apprehending people and are more familiar with the Criminal Code than the average citizen. They, in effect, perform a citizen's arrest based on seeing someone commit a shoplifting offence. They phone the police and hold the shoplifter until the police come, which is what Mr. Chen did. However, what was different in this case is that the individual had left the store and then came back. When he came back he was not in the act of committing an offence at that time. As a result, Mr. Chen, the owner of the store, was not inside the current provisions of section 494 of the Criminal Code that says a citizen may arrest someone who is found committing an indictable offence or personally believes on reasonable grounds that a criminal offence had been committed, the perpetrator is escaping from it and is freshly pursued.
Section 494 states specifically that, “A person authorized by the owner or by a person in lawful possession of property, may arrest without warrant a person whom he finds committing a criminal offence on or in relation to that property.”
There is also a provision that says, “Any one other than a peace officer who arrests a person without warrant shall forthwith deliver the person to a peace officer.”
The normal process for shoplifting is that the store detective, store owner or the private security officer can apprehend individuals, phone the police, turn them over and let the police handle it from there. In this case, because the arrest took place over an hour later on a return visit, the owner did not have any basis under section 494 to arrest the individual, which is, of course, why we are standing here today debating this bill.
The bill originally came forward as a private member's bill introduced by our colleague, the member for Trinity—Spadina. I think she may have even called it the “Lucky Moose Bill” in honour of Mr. Chen. It has received widespread support from all sides of the House with perhaps one notable exception. Many people who are in the position of lawmaker are very concerned about passing laws that would encourage a vigilante type of justice. This is why it is such a touchy area.
As has been pointed out by many of my colleagues, we have highly trained police forces operating across the country. We have a national police force, provincial police forces in Ontario and Quebec, as well as local police forces and community policing. We are incredibly proud of these men and women who serve Canadians on a daily basis. As well, in the area where Mr. Chen's supermarket is located in Chinatown, police patrol on foot. These are the people we need to rely on. On the other hand, not every store owner has access to security guards or store detectives, and certainly the police are unable to be everywhere at once.
The concern here is for people trying to run a business. In this case, Mr. Chen was trying to run a business and protect his property. Most people would think that he acted reasonably and detained the individual without using excessive force. However, it was still under the current provisions for forcible confinement that Mr. Chen was charged. If one uses force to confine someone and prevent that person from leaving, that is an offence.
However, the citizen's arrest provision provides a defence for forcible confinement by changing it to an arrest, provided the arrest is made within a reasonable period of time.
If the individual who is committing the offence is known, one would be able to simply phone the police to tell them what the individual has done and that they have done this before, in this case, taking something and leaving. In this instance, Mr. Chen did not know the name and address where this individual could be found and unfortunately felt the necessity to take action. An individual should not be chased because of the danger involved, and the police should be called. However, as I have stated, in a case where an individual is not known, the only way to apprehend an offending stranger is to take advantage of the opportunity.
We support this aspect of the bill wholeheartedly. It takes a minimalist approach by making changes to section 494. What I mean by “minimalist” is that it changes only what is required according to the circumstances in which Mr. Chen found himself.
There have to be two conditions: one must witness the offence, and the arrest must be made at the time of the offence or within a reasonable time after the offence is committed; and, one must believe on reasonable grounds that it is not feasible under the circumstances for a peace officer to make an arrest.
We could say that when the individual came back into the store, instead of arresting him perhaps the police should have been called right away. However, in Mr. Chen's experience the police often did not come fast enough in these kinds of situations and he thought that this individual would be gone again.
If these changes had already been in place, Mr. Chen would have had his defence, as it would have fit these circumstances. As legislators, we should not make laws every time something unusual happens and we must be very careful in making changes to the Criminal Code. However, when a flaw is pointed out in the law due to an unusual event and injustice can be seen, then a reasonable legislature should take action. We support that wholeheartedly.
I have had several instances in my personal life where I have come close to this kind of situation while travelling on public transit in Toronto. I have taken the TTC on a daily basis for many years and have encountered all kinds of unusual situations. I witnessed an assault on a 13-year-old in the subway by 17-year-old students, and I witnessed a TTC patron spitting on a TTC operator. In each of these situations, the assailants fled. Being a little out of my mind with anger, I did pursue them. However, during that pursuit, I was lucky enough to locate peace officers who were then able to make the arrests so that I did not run afoul of the law in some way and end up in trouble myself.
This bill is important because it ensures that individuals like Mr. Chen, who are protecting their person and property, are able to do so within the law. To be able to defend oneself within the law is incredibly important. That is why over many years there have been all kinds of changes made to the Criminal Code, and we certainly have to do so diligently.
Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act April 25th, 2012
Mr. Speaker, as the member was just saying, there is perhaps a lack of collegiality or cooperation on the government benches. I would be interested in hearing more about that. Perhaps the member has an idea to pass along to the government.
Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act April 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, the member for Barrie spoke a lot about biometrics, and there is good and bad to that. There was a parliamentary committee researching the issue of biometrics. It was hearing witnesses and receiving expert testimony.
Why does the member and his government think the Montreal Gazette's opinion is more important on this than actually letting the parliamentary committee finish its work before introducing legislation on the subject?
Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act April 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for joining me and the member for Beaches—East York as members of the new parliamentary friendship association between Canada and Bangladesh. We would sincerely like a member of the government to show up to one of these meetings.
There are many parallels. We just need to look at the gun registry. The government said the registry criminalizes people, yet its own folks admitted that over 4,000 stolen firearms were re-registered through the gun registry. The government had no answer as to what it would do about going after that.
Bill C-4 criminalizes refugees rather than the folks who are bringing them here through human smuggling. They already face huge fines; this legislation would put people and families and children in prison, and it is unconscionable.
Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act April 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, the restrictive elements are going to affect a number of people in my riding. Fully 50% of my riding of Scarborough Southwest is made up of immigrants and new Canadians. This change and all the other changes coming down the pipe, as well as those that have already happened, affect my constituents negatively on a daily basis.
It occurs with the moratorium on parental sponsorships. People who have come here and have started a family cannot get their parents over to help act as caregivers and therefore do not have enough money to go out and work or to attend school or language training classes. The cuts to settlement services that have happened time and time again in our city are affecting these individuals. These cuts negatively impact the economy as well as individuals.
The Conservative government talks about the economy incessantly. It says that it is the best with respect to the economy, that it is on the right path; it is absolutely on the wrong path. The government is damaging a generation of new Canadians and immigrants who have come here.
Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act April 23rd, 2012
Mr. Speaker, that is the crux of it. At the end of the day, even without all of these ethical and potentially other breaches that we have seen from the government, as parliamentarians it would not be right to put that much power to decide the fate of tens of thousands of claimants into one person's hands.
Citizenship and immigration backlogs are now being cleared off by simply eliminating everybody who has applied, including individuals who applied six years ago to come here as skilled workers. A person who applied when single and is now married with a family is finding out that his file is going to be thrown out the door and shredded. This individual is going to have to apply again at the same time as somebody who decided yesterday to come here as a skilled worker.
These are the kinds of decisions being made by the minister, and they give us absolutely no faith whatsoever that he will be able to make the kinds of decisions that are going to be fair to the people coming to Canada seeking a better life.