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The BC Civil Liberties Association is worried a new bill to strengthen citizen’s arrest rights will open the door to privatized 911 services and foster vigilantism.
The legislation, announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Feb. 17, would allow property owners—or someone authorized by them—to arrest an individual within a reasonable time following the commission of an alleged offence.
Enabling property owners to appoint others to make an arrest could be a slippery slope, according to BCCLA president Robert Holmes.
“Allowing private security companies to be made agents of property owners and roam around
arresting people is a bad move,” Holmes said.
Private policing has been on the increase across the country, with an expansion of private security firms both at malls and on urban streets. However, the BCCLA notes that security firms are not regulated or overseen in the manner that police are and lack the training, education, discipline, and professionalism required from police officers.
“The idea that you could call ‘Bob’s 911 Service’ and have someone forcibly arrest and detain another person is an invitation to vigilantism. We call for this bill to be amended to close that gap immediately,” said Holmes.
Concerns that police are too busy to answer a 911 call about a minor property crime can be remedied not by making it possible for “people to take the law into their own hands,” Holmes added, but instead by increasing police numbers.
“The solution is to ensure that there are adequate professionally trained and qualified police resources available,” he said.
The new legislation was inspired by the case of David Chen, the owner of Lucky Moose Food Mart in downtown Toronto. Chen made a citizen’s arrest after a shoplifter came back a second time to steal from his store, but was charged himself instead.
Chen and two employees were acquitted last October of charges of assault and forcible confinement for tying up a shoplifter and holding him in the back of a van until police arrived.
Harper has been accused of engaging in political manoeuvring in introducing the Citizen’s Arrest and Self-Defence Act, as NDP MP Olivia Chow and Liberal MP Joe Volpe had already introduced their own private member’s bills on the issue.
Both are taking credit for the impetus behind Harper’s move.
Speaking to reporters on the Hill after the PM’s announcement, Volpe said he presented his bill in June “and it was there as an example for everybody else.”
“I think it’s remarkable that the prime minister recognized that a backbencher in the Opposition had a solution to his problem and today recognizes it, admits it, but didn’t have the class to say ‘I’m going to take Joe Volpe’s bill, I’m going to right a wrong.’”
Chow, in whose riding Chen’s store resides, said in a release that she is “happy to see the Conservative government taking action” on her bill. Last year, Chow presented a 10,000-name petition in the House demanding change.
“We took a look at those bills,” Harper said during his announcement at the Lucky Moose last Thursday. “We debated some other options and I think the bill the government is tabling today incorporates not just the better parts of those bills, but is much more comprehensive in scope.”
As the law is currently written, a citizen’s arrest is only permitted if an individual is caught actively engaged in a criminal offence on or in relation to one’s property. Chen nabbed shoplifter Anthony Bennett an hour after he stole plants from his store.
The new law would expand the circumstances in which citizens’ arrests can be made, and streamline related provisions in the Criminal Code.
The BCCLA said it is writing a letter to all the federal political parties to express concern about the proposed legislation.
