Olivia Chow

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, March 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, store owners in Toronto's Chinatown, throughout Toronto and across the country are saying that they want all political parties to work together to change the law and make it more flexible in terms of citizen's arrest. They would then feel secure knowing if they did something similar to what David Chen did, they would not have to go through what he experienced, namely, a year and a half of lost time, a huge amount of expense and a lot of attention that he did not want.

They are hoping for speedy passage of the amendment to the citizen's arrest portion of the Criminal Code.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, March 7th, 2011]

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.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, March 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, at no time did David Chen feel that the shoplifter would assault him. When he gave chase, it was because of the plants that the shoplifter had taken. I fail to see how removing a section such as, “not intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm” from the Criminal Code to justify self-defence would help the situation.

Right now a person has to prove that he or she used force in order to defend himself or herself. At no point was that really the question. The question was whether it was within David Chen's right to make a citizen's arrest. Had he done so when the shoplifter was stealing in the store he would not have been charged, but because he chased him outside after the shoplifting had occurred, that was the real problem. That was perceived as the problem. That was what was debated in court.

I sat through the entire summary by David Chen's lawyer. I also sat through the entire judgment when the judge acquitted David Chen, so I am very familiar with the court case.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, March 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to say that David Chen of the Lucky Moose Food Mart would never want to assault another human being. Therefore, this whole question of self-defence is a red herring, because he was not being attacked by the person who stole things from his store. It is not a question of self-defence we are dealing with. We are talking about his right to make a citizen's arrest.

Why do we need the part of this bill that deals with citizen's arrest? From coast to coast to coast we have heard from small business owners, not just from the one group the Conservative government spoke of having one or two meetings with. I have in fact met with store owners not just in Toronto but in Vancouver and Montreal also. They are saying that they work long hours, their profit margins are small and, unlike large stores, they have no money to hire security guards and do not want to do so. They really do not have a lot of extra staff on hand. They work such long hours and their profit margins are very low, so every dollar they lose from shoplifting means that they must work many more hours.

Let me describe Mr. Chen's situation. I believe that a large number of Canadians are now familiar with the story.

Mr. Chen works at least 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, every week of the year. Most times he and his wife stay upstairs above the store in order to wake up early in the morning to go to the market to buy the merchandise they sell in their store. They hire a number of employees. However, on average they make around minimum wage, so every $100 they lose means they have to work another 10 or 15 hours. When they noticed that a person was repeatedly coming to their store to steal plants and food items, they wanted to take action. It is not that they wanted to cause any harm to anyone. They called the police several times and yet the police for some reason did not come.

An hour later the thief came back with the intent to steal more plants, because the first time around the thief was unable to carry all the plants that he wanted to take. He came back to steal more, but did not get to do that. David Chen proceeded to give chase and held the person in his van. Once the police arrived, Mr. Chen was charged with the very serious offences of assault, confinement, carrying a concealed weapon, et cetera.

Mr. Chen had difficulty finding the time and financial resources to hire a lawyer to go to court over and over again to defend himself. Members of the community in Toronto organized a fundraising banquet in order to support him because they felt that what had happened to him was unjust.

In my riding, we have noticed that what occurred to David Chen is not an isolated incident. Another store owner in the Kensington market area, Jeff Ing, who sells fruits and vegetables at his store, Jungle Fruit, has lost a lot of business because of the same person who was shoplifting at the Lucky Moose.

I then went with the member for Vancouver Kingsway to talk to other store owners. We walked along Victoria Street with a petition in support of my private member's bill, Bill C-565, that would allow a citizen's arrest to happen, not at a time when the offence is taking place but within a reasonable amount of time after an offence has taken place, with reasonable grounds. Every shop on Victoria Street and every shopper with whom we spoke were willing to sign the petition. They thought it was important that the Criminal Code be amended with a very common-sense amendment and that it was high time for such an amendment to take place.

Some people asked whether the amendment would encourage vigilantism. No, it would not because the code would not be changed in a way that would allow a citizen's arrest to be done in a way that would cause harm. The “arrest” is basically detaining the person while waiting for the police officers to come and make the actual arrest. The amendment would not change any part of the code dealing with using force.

Some may ask if it means that the employees of some stores would be requested to put their lives in danger in order to apprehend shoplifters. Absolutely not. People do not need to detain shoplifters. We encourage people to call the police and wait for them to come. It is only when there is no other choice that they would make a citizen's arrest. No employees would be under any duress, because they are protected by the provincial labour code, to put themselves in any kind of dangerous situation. It would not justify any use of force because that is not what it is all about.

We believe it is up to peace officers, RCMP, provincial police and the local police force to do their job. We need to ensure that community policing is the order of the day. We need to ensure the police are visible in the community, work closely with the communities and the business improvement area so we can reduce shoplifting incidents in the first place, rather than waiting for them to happen and a citizen's arrest having to be made. It is also important that the Conservative government honour its campaign promise to hire more police officers. However, in some cities across Canada, we have not see the increase of police officers as promised.

We must also invest in crime prevention. The person shoplifting should have drug treatment programs to ensure he or she quits the drug habit. The shoplifter admitted to that. For young people who may fall into gang situations, we need to find ways to ensure they have good role models and good employment programs before they start shoplifting in the first place.

Bill C-60, however, is not just about citizen's arrest. Two other portions in Bill C-60 are far more complex. I fail to see why the government would not allow this portion, which has the unanimous support of all parties, to move ahead, which is precisely the request that came from the community.

The member from Mississauga—Erindale, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, was in receipt of suggestions for a private member's bill from the community with the precise wording that both myself and other members of Parliament have submitted. The community was interested in the citizen's arrest portion of the Criminal Code.

Adding in the defence of property and self-defence muddies the water. If the Conservatives are not willing to split the bill and do a quick consent for citizen's arrest, then the bill will go to the justice committee where it must go through a very detailed study of the two portions.

Some elements that modernize the Criminal Code may be worthy of support but some of the other amendments may have unintended consequences. For example, removing the requirements on the use force in self-defence could lead to troubling incidents and may result in the escalation of violence. I certainly hope not but we do not know.

The guideline right now is very straightforward in that ordinary Canadians are not allowed to use force that could result in the death of the attacker unless they believe their life is at risk. The use of force must be proven in order to defend oneself. If the definition of the type of threat is removed, then unintended consequences may result for people who believe they are under any kind of threat. In the Criminal Code now, the amount of force needed to repel an attack should be used, but not more. Why do we need to change that aspect of it?

This part of the bill is quite complex and causes some unease in terms of what precisely the Conservative government is trying to do, which is why we are calling upon the Conservatives to immediately split the bill and allow the other two portions of the bill to undergo careful examination. If the government is not willing to do so, then it is playing politics with incidents like David Chen's incident at the Lucky Moose Food Mart. Instead of working with other parties to get results and make Parliament work, the Conservatives want to take this incident and play partisan games with it, which is most unfortunate.

I hope that is not the government's intention, and I do not detect that intention. I sense a willingness of all parties to work together to ensure that incidents, like David Chen's incident, never happen again.

Perhaps all members of Parliament have heard the petitioners from coast to coast to coast who have petitioned Parliament to take action. I recently submitted 10,000 names to Parliament of people urging us to take immediate action.

This debate on amending the Criminal Code for citizen's arrests has been requested by the community for over a year and a half. The incident that led to this discussion, David Chen's incident, occurred in May 2009. It is not as if this just occurred. We have had a long time to look at the Criminal Code and a long time to discuss what needs to be done. On my private member's bill, which came forward in September of last year, there were numerous discussions on the citizen's arrest portion. A lot of store owners from Montreal have talked about this and they want us to work together.

It is my sincere wish that we do not muddy the water with the other two portions of this bill and allow the citizen's arrest portion to move ahead. There is no doubt that the whole notion of self-defence and protection of property in the Criminal Code, which was written a long time ago, will eventually need some kind of adjustment and amendment with more modernized wording so that the different sections can be compressed into a few sections. I understand why that is necessary but to tack it on to Bill C-60 is unfortunate.

The other element of this is that we do not know whether the Conservative government will bring forward a budget that is supportable by all parties. If the budget comes forward and one of the opposition parties makes a decision not to support it, then Parliament will not survive past the end of March. If that is the case, then all the work that has been done to amend the Criminal Code, specifically on citizen's arrests, will not occur.

We are in early March and there are only a few weeks before the coming budget. For this bill to get through second reading today or tomorrow, then go to the justice committee where it has a large number of justice bills in front it, and then, assuming it passes there, to come back to the House of Commons at report stage and then third reading will take quite a bit of time. After that, it still needs to go to the Senate for approval.

Leaving this bill so late, in terms of the upcoming budget, is most unfortunate. I do hope the government will work with the opposition members of Parliament to split the bill and allow the citizen's arrest portion to move ahead with unanimous consent.

[Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act, March 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I do not see the relationship between a citizen's arrest in David Chen's case at the Lucky Moose and spousal abuse.

The bill in front of us has three parts. The first deals with citizen's arrest, the second with defence of property and the third with self-defence. Why has the Conservative government tacked on the two other elements when there is unanimous consent on the first element of citizen's arrest? The Bloc, the Liberals and the New Democrats are in agreement on changing the words to allow a reasonable amount of time on reasonable grounds. We have no problem with that. The other two parts basically remove the section that said “not intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm”. This means that the Conservatives are expanding the whole notion of when people can protect themselves. It gets into very muddy waters.

I cannot see how self-defence is connected with a citizen's arrest and why it is included in this bill.

[Committees of the House, March 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the 2011-12 estimates just came out and the immigration and citizenship department sees a decrease of $30.6 million to the interim federal health program, global case management. The interim federal health program assists new immigrants in finding good jobs in the health field, for example, by assisting them to get internships in hospitals so they can practise as doctors, which Canada needs.

The minister tells me that maybe that cut will not have a drastic impact on immigrant settlement services. Perhaps the member could comment on that.

It also has a decrease of $7.5 million in funding related to managing the immigration program backlog. There is a good increase to the Canada-Quebec transfer accord of $259 million, which will help Quebec immigrants. I just wish that this were extended across the country, so there would be a 2% increase across the board. Instead, we see that there is a decrease outside Quebec. I just want some comments from the member.

[Committees of the House, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, we know immigrants settle well when they go to services that are neighbourhood-based and that provide a comprehensive approach. It is not just about language training and about finding a job; it is also about establishing connections and putting roots into a community.

We know those kinds of services are the best kind and that a lot of them come about through the voluntary services of immigrant settlement workers. Of all the settlement service agencies that I know, I do not know of one that does not use a large number of volunteers.

Could the member describe the kind of impact that has when an agency closes its door and lays off its staff? What happens to all the volunteers who have helped newcomers settle into their neighbourhoods?

[Committees of the House, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, yes, the immigrants services funding was frozen for 13 years and it has been increased since 2006, but there is no good reason in this year, in 2011, when we have a record number of immigrants coming into this country, to have the kind of meanspirited cuts we have seen of $53 million.

Has the member seen a transition plan, so that the thousands and thousands of newcomers in Ontario who have now been thrown out on the street as of March 31, where newcomers would continue to find services, whether settlement, adaptation, language training, finding homes or finding jobs. I do not notice a transition plan, but perhaps the member has.

[Committees of the House, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, we are here debating the funding cuts because there is an urgency to them. We are not talking about partisan games but about all of those agencies that are going to lose their funding by the end of the month. That is why we are here talking about this, instead of government orders.

I have a full right to demand three hours of debate and then a vote so that people in Ontario and across Canada know will how each member of Parliament feels about this brutal cut of $53 million from settlement services for newcomers.

[Committees of the House, March 1st, 2011]

Madam Speaker, there really needs to be a transition plan. The Government of Canada should work with other service agencies in the province of Ontario, the city of Toronto, and other cities to find ways to ensure these 100,000 newcomers would not be negatively affected.

This kind of transition plan would take at least six months to a year to put together. I hope that there will be co-operation, that we would transcend partisan games and lines to find a way to come together to ensure that newcomers do not end up losing the services.

One group of newcomers are Afghan interpreters who have put their lives on the line for our Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. They are arriving in Canada just as the Afghan Association of Ontario is having its funding cut. These Afghan interpreters, coming to this country after serving us well, deserve a way to adapt, so they could—