David Christopherson

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it was important that the member said the House and committees. All of us in this place know that the real work, the roll up our sleeves, get down to work, no one is watching, just do plain work, happens at committee.

We first started to see the government's approach to committee work when we were setting up the rules, when we were talking about how committees would be structured, how often people would be allowed to talk, all those basic and fundamental fairness rules. We watched the way that the Conservative government just rolled in like a bulldozer and attempted to get every advantage it could, believing again that its 39% of the votes gave it an entitlement to 100% of the power and everything that goes with that.

The member himself answered appropriately in focusing on committee, because that is where the work happens, that is where the tone is set. The work that was done in committee that led us to Bill C-26 was successful. I am willing to bet that if we looked at the transcript we would find that people cooperated, people worked together to find solutions rather than working to find divisions based on partisanship.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it was not that long ago in a minority setting that the government did not really want to, but was forced to, work with other members. We did get things done. The government has had from the beginning the attitude that it has a majority and somehow 39% of the votes give it 100% of the power. The Conservatives believe that they can just rule at will. Their whole demeanour changed once they received that majority. It is a shame, because Bill C-26 is an example of how working together benefits all of us politically, but more important, provides better legislation, better laws and ultimately safer streets.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, every one of us here, certainly on this side of the House, has given credit to the member for Trinity—Spadina, in whose riding Mr. Chen lived and where the incident happened. It was her initiative and credit needs to be given. I said yesterday that I hoped somewhere in Hansard there was a quote from someone in the government who also recognized the leading role of the member for Trinity—Spadina.

In the time I have, I want to acknowledge what I said in the beginning. The government has finally found a way to work with the opposition, to get into the Criminal Code and deal with it in a real way as opposed to the political spin that is around every single law and order item that it brings forward. Therefore, I am prepared to acknowledge that, with the leadership of the member for Trinity—Spadina, it took the cooperation of members in the official opposition and the government. We only wish that the government would take this approach more consistently, because it is a heck of a lot more progressive and positive in terms of making changes to our Criminal Code than the way the government normally conducts itself on matters like this.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the minister himself is responding to my comments. If we take further what the hon. member has said, we all know that the Conservative idea of a balanced justice system is to just throw someone in jail, throw away the key and then tell everybody that the streets have been made safe. The fact of the matter is that for all the people who go into jail, the overwhelming majority are coming out again. If we do not pay some attention to what is happening when people are incarcerated, yes, I stand by the statement that under some of the government's laws, things will be worse, the streets will be less safe and people will not have the justice that I am saying does exist within this bill.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. I mentioned in my remarks yesterday that one of the concerns is that in clarifying the legislation, we may inadvertently incent the notion of vigilantism and that is something we do not want to do. I appreciate very much that the member has also focused on the important balancing act within the law and the need to balance the right of citizens to engage in citizen's arrests when the circumstances warrant, but that it does not get out of hand. We know where that could lead us. The notion of an educational component to advise citizens what their rights are under similar circumstances makes a great deal of sense. I hope that will be part of the follow-up to the bill passing this place.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, again, I appreciate this opportunity. As I only have five minutes, I will not try to mount a review of everything I said.

However, a couple of people who were flipping through the channels and heard me using certain language contacted my office wondering what exactly that was all about. Therefore, I will take just a couple of the minutes I have to address that.

I was making reference to the Criminal Code and the areas that Bill C-26 would amend and how there had been a long-standing issue with a number of aspects of that legislation. I had pointed out that one of our chief justices had said in the case of R. v. McIntosh that sections 34 and 35 were:

—highly technical, excessively detailed provisions deserving of much criticism. These provisions overlap, and are internally inconsistent in certain respects.

I have no doubt that for learned colleagues who are lawyers, that language is crystal clear, but not so much for the rest of us.

I then presented to the House a quote from Mr. Bumble of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, which reads as follows:

If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass...

I hear one of my colleagues say that it really should be “an ass.” That is the natural way to say it, but given that I was quoting, I wanted to use the exact quote as I would not want to wrong Mr. Dickens after all these years. Although that is the direct quote, there is more to it, but I thought that was the most apropos. It is a relatively well-known expression when we find ourselves in a situation that seems perfectly logical, but when we look at the law from a legal point of view it looks completely different. Therefore, we often hear people say that the law is “an ass”. It is a reference to this famous works.

The reason I brought that forward was to try to illustrate the situation that Mr. Chen found himself in when he believed he was defending his property. It is a fundamental right that people have. He believed the actions he took did not cross any legal lines. He thought he was well within his rights to do what he did to assist in apprehending someone who was stealing from his business.

Mr. Chen was initially charged with kidnapping, carrying a dangerous weapon, assault and forceable confinement. However, the kidnapping and weapons charges were dropped, but the serious charges of forceable confinement and assault were proceeded with. He was acquitted of those charges.

Although we recognize that changing laws based on one case and one instance is an area that we need to be very careful of, in this case it illustrates to us that this place and the system can work. Mr. Chen was found innocent and the guilty person was found guilty and served a sentence. Now we are in the process of changing the law so the Mr. Chens of the future will not find themselves in the horrific legal position in which he found himself.

Therefore, all in all it worked out. Hopefully, this will improve our Criminal Code and will bring more justice to Canadians.

I thank all those who worked so hard to get us to the point where the official opposition is comfortable in supporting a bill that amends the Criminal Code and that actually helps people, as opposed to the spin we get from the government on its law and order agenda. Therefore, We are very pleased to support the bill.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

“Not just the law”, the hon. member across the way says. I have to agree with him on that. Because he was not specific, I will not assume to what he was referring. I will just take it as a generalization and keep us in good spirits here.

I do think the point is made in terms of “the law is a ass”, and goes on to say, “a idiot” after that.

The fact remains that for Mr. Chen's point of view, this law is “a ass”. Here was a store owner, and as far as he was concerned, there was complete proof of who was stealing from him. When the person returned, Mr. Chen thought this was his chance to get at the source of the theft and stop the stealing. He knew the person, so he wanted to grab him before he came back to steal even more. Then, as we know, Mr. Chen ends up with all these charges and a potential criminal record. If he had been found guilty of those original charges, he would have been in a pile of trouble, probably doing time in a federal penitentiary, assuming there is one that is open.

Luckily, in this case one could say that our system actually worked. To recap, here is a situation. The grocery store owner went through these incidents, had taken the action he did, believing that he was completely in the right, doing exactly what he had a right to do to protect his property and his business from theft, only to discovery that he was the one who was in a lot of trouble because of, as the justice had talked about, highly technical, excessively detailed provisions deserving of much criticism. The law is “a ass”, and every now and then that is the case.

The only thing that would be worse is if nothing was done about it. If all that happened was that Mr. Chen had it resolved one way or another, it went off the front pages and out of the media, people did not talk about it anymore and we, the chamber of law-making, did nothing. That, to me, would be an even bigger crime.

I think it is worth pointing out from the lay person's point of view that we had an incident. A citizen believed he was in the right, only to find out that due to the technicalities of the law, he was not within his rights. In fact, he was in a lot of trouble. As we know, Mr. Chen and his two accused were found not guilty of the charges of forcible confinement and assault on October 29, 2010. The person who stole pled guilty in August of 2009 to stealing from that store and he was given 30 days.

At the front end, where people live, things worked out, but, quite frankly, only because there was such a hue and cry across the land and the fact that the member for Trinity—Spadina took up this cause and said that it was not good enough that we allowed Mr. Chen to find justice in this case, that we needed to fix the law so no future Canadians would find themselves in a similar situation. When we discover a piece of law is “a ass”, we fix it so it is not. That is pretty much what we are doing here. It is actually a relatively good day for the Criminal Code of Canada, given the kind of abuse that it has taken from the government on the other side.

Mr. Chen got his justice. It would seem that the perpetrator of the crime got his justice, and hopefully he has turned his life around. Now we are in the process of finalizing the changes to the Criminal Code so no other Canadian has to go through what Mr. Chen did. It does not mean the law is perfect and it does not mean there will not be people who still find themselves in a bit of a jackpot, but at least the House, the standing committee, experts who were brought in, everybody focused as best they could on how to amend this law.

That was not necessarily easy. First, it is never good policy to be making laws around one issue. One has to be very careful when thinking of doing that. Second, there is a concern that if the law is reshaped too much in one direction, we could encourage, perhaps even make legal, activities that we do not want in our country, meaning that people will seek their own revenge. They will seek their own justice. There will be a vigilante kind of atmosphere around the changes. Therefore, one has to be very careful.

Again, not being a lawyer, I could not say exactly which words or clauses would do that. That is why we brought in experts. Most of the members in this place are not lawyers and that is why we take advantage of slowing down the work at committee, going through legislation clause-by-clause and asking experts, not just somebody who has an opinion but somebody who has an expert opinion, such as law professors, the law society, the whole list.

We brought those folks in and asked them questions such as: Did this do the job? If it did not, what would they recommend and why? We would ask the person sitting beside them, “You have heard something that's a little different, so what do you think about that?” With that give and take and working things through, it seems to us in the official opposition that we have a bill that actually meets that need. It is going to save the Mr. Chens of the future from having to go through what he went through, but we have not gone so far as to give a sense that any kind of vigilante activity, in the purest sense of vigilante, is not on. For all the problems that we have and all the fun and jokes about government and everything else, it really is nice to see.

In the end, we had an incident that was resolved with fairness and justice, and that is good. Now we have a bill that would amend the Criminal Code so hopefully it would not happen again, but we have been very careful about adjusting it so we do not go too far to suggest that vigilantism is okay in the country. All in all, finally, on the Criminal Code file, it was a good day at work.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, April 24th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the debate today.

Right from the get-go, I will display my non-credentials to the extent that I am not a lawyer. I am a layperson, so my comments will be very much from the point of view of what took place, why it took place, what the solution is and where we are in terms of the politics of it right now. I will leave it to the professionals to deal with the details of discussing the minutia of the bill.

Also, it is a real treat to be stand in this place to talk about what one could call a law and order bill from the government that we can actually support, that actually does something positive and is not just laden down and loaded with spin, taking care of the base and all the politics. It is nice to deal with the Criminal Code in a way that the average Canadian would not only understand but would support.

At the risk of my whole speech becoming a preamble, this may indeed be the very first time probably in my entire public life where I may not use all the time available. The odds are that will not happen, because I know what I am like, but there is a good chance I will conclude a little early. I am just letting you, Mr. Speaker, know that if that happens, I am not ill; nothing has gone wrong, even though it will be so uncharacteristic of me to give up any time available. However, this may indeed be one of those times.

With all of that, let me give some thoughts to Bill C-26 before us now. One cannot talk about the bill or these measures without giving a great deal of credit to, and I am not sure it has happened but I would hope government members have also acknowledged, the lead role that the NDP member for Trinity—Spadina has played on this file. I know it has been talked about on our side of the House. I certainly hope Hansard reflects that the government was gracious enough to acknowledge that at least half the credit for an improvement to our Criminal Code does go to the member for Trinity—Spadina in whose riding the original incident took place, and that gave rise to Bill C-26 and the amendments therein to the Criminal Code.

It has been mentioned a number of times, but it is pretty hard to give a speech without putting some context to it. As we know, on May 23, 2009, Mr. Chen, who owned the Lucky Moose Food Mart in Toronto, apprehended someone he believed had stolen from his store. When the person returned, Mr. Chen and two employees tied him up and locked him the back of the delivery van. When the police arrived, they charged Mr. Chen with kidnapping, carrying a dangerous weapon--which was a box cutter--assault and forcible confinement. By the way, the box cutter is pretty much a tool of the business. I think everybody understands that.

The crown prosecutors dropped the kidnapping and weapons charges, but they went ahead with the charges of forcible confinement and assault. This got a lot of attention from a lot of Canadians, for good reason. It the sort of circumstance that ordinary people could find themselves in, or someone they know could find themselves in, wheter friend, family, or neighbours. It is not the usual dealing with the intricacies of the law. This is pretty plain and simple. This is everyday living.

It is interesting that this area of the Criminal Code has been a problem before. In fact, there have been public comments made by judges in the matter around the issue of self-defence and defence of property and the rights to citizen's arrest.

It is interesting that in the case of R. v. McIntosh, Chief Justice Lamer stated that sections 34 and 35 were:

—highly technical, excessively detailed provisions deserving of much criticism. These provisions overlap, and are internally inconsistent in certain respects.

Most of us can get the gist of that. Lawyers in the room will understand, I am sure, the poetry to that language. However, I thought a more apropos quote for ordinary folks, and very much a colloquial interpretation of what the justice said, comes from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, and captures that same sentiment rather nicely. In Oliver Twist it says:

If the law supposes that, “said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass...

From time to time, even though that was written a very long time ago, it is quite appropriate. I think it is appropriate in this case—

[Committees of the House, April 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in relation to its study of chapter 3, Reserve Force Pension Plan, National Defence of the 2011 spring report of the Auditor General of Canada.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee requests the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

[Committees of the House, April 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in relation to its study of chapter 1, Financial Management and Control and Risk Management, of the 2011 Status Report of the Auditor General of Canada.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.