In an effort to make it easier for shop owners to arrest thieves stealing from their stores, Eglinton-Lawrence MP Joe Volpe met with Chinatown and Kensington Market merchants Friday, July 23, one month after introducing a private member's bill championing the cause.
Volpe introduced the bill June 16 in the House of Commons to amend section 494 of the Criminal Code of Canada, calling for a more lenient definition of what's defined as reasonable force in making a citizen arrest.Section 494 of the Criminal Code prohibits merchants from apprehending alleged shoplifters outside their stores."Imagine being a homeowner witnessing an individual vandalizing their home or property," Volpe told the Legislature in introducing his bill. "Under the current act, they have no legal right to detain the perpetrator because by the time they reach him the act has already been committed. Take for example, the shop owner who has been repeatedly robbed by a known career criminal, and yet one day, an hour after stealing something from his store, the criminal comes back for more. The shop owner cannot capture him and call the police. Under the current law they would be charged with assault, forcible confinement and thrown into jail. When just such an incident occurred last year in Toronto's Chinatown, the minister of immigration vowed to change the law, as did the parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice. A year later all they have delivered is false hope and disappointment. Our laws should attack criminals, not the victims. Here is my solution in this bill. Now it is up to the Conservative government, so I ask: Are the Conservatives going to stand up for victims or aid criminals?"The incident Volpe was referring to stemmed from the arrest of Chinatown shop owner David (Wang) Chen, who police initially charged with assault, kidnapping, forcible confinement and carrying a concealed weapon after Chen and two co-workers chased down a man who allegedly stole from his store in May 2009 and held him in a van until officers arrived. Kidnapping and carrying a concealed weapon charges were later dropped. A trial on the remaining charges has been set for October. Volpe met with downtown business owners who have had issues with the way the current law applies to protecting their property.His amended bill calls for a wider time frame to make an arrest - as it stands now, citizen arrests can only be made during the actual act - and greater tolerance to allow use of reasonable force.