Justice committee  Thank you. Good morning. I'd like to start by thanking the committee for having me here. I see a few familiar faces from previous testimony I've given as a member of the Criminal Lawyers' Association. Today I'm testifying as an individual, out of my own interest as a criminal

Justice committee  Perhaps I could just jump in here. Speaking to the self-defence provisions in the defence of property, I think it's certainly a laudable goal in mind to simplify the sections. This is something that courts and experts have been calling for, for a long time, and I think it will g

Justice committee  I'll answer very quickly, because I think the other two witnesses have much more expertise than I do on this topic. Yes, I do think that there needs to be accountability. I think this was a problem that pre-existed this amendment. Even as it stood, the powers that the private sec

Justice committee  Yes. I wholeheartedly agree. And I think you've put it much better than I could. In fact, in responding to the David Chen case, when you look at the language of the proposed amendment, it quite laudably does try to narrow the issue so as to prevent concerns of vigilantism and n

Justice committee  I'll answer in English. I can understand French, but my spoken French isn't very good. Yes, I would agree that it should remain as it is with respect to the citizen's arrest. I don't have very many issues with respect to the defence of property and self-defence, subject to the

Justice committee  In short, if you have that sort of reasonableness requirement you are leaving it to the common law to figure it out, and the courts are going to have to figure it out. It's not the first time that such language has been used and the common law has been left to figure it out. Ther

Justice committee  Self-defence...?

Justice committee  I'd say about a dozen. I should mention that I am not an academic.

Justice committee  Yes, that's right.

Justice committee  Yes. Perhaps I could answer in English. Thank you. In my experience and in the experience of members of my law firm and other lawyers with whom I speak, private security guards have less training, have less experience with the use of force than do police officers. To become a po

Justice committee  I could certainly agree in principle with providing clarity to citizens in effecting these arrests. I would agree with Professor MacDonnell about the uncertainty caused by the reasonableness requirement and what is feasible in the circumstances. You raised the example of rural

Justice committee  Sure. The Alberta Court of Appeal, in a case called Lerke, a 1986 judgment, determined that the charter in fact did apply to citizen's arrest. The basis for that conclusion was really an historical analysis that was done on the power of citizen's arrest, that in fact the power o

Justice committee  It's hard to say. I have a hard time disagreeing with Professor Rigakos about the one-day limit. I obviously would grow more cautious as the time became expanded. I would note that in David Chen's case, he was acquitted on the basis of the original legislation, so the one- to t

Justice committee  I doubt that.

Justice committee  I would have to say that I was very torn when I read Justice Khawly's decision in R. v. Chen. On the one hand, I think the reason that all of the political parties seem to have taken hold of this case and sympathized with Mr. Chen...that resonates with me, because I think the s