Justice committee  We weren't involved. That was a provincial prosecution conducted by the AG of British Columbia.

Justice committee  It depends what the charges were laid under. Those were, as I recall, Criminal Code prosecutions for murder.

Justice committee  Yes, I know.

Justice committee  I do not know whether or not the delay that occurred with the sponsorship case was linked to the attorneys, because this inquiry did last quite some time. It was the Attorney General of Quebec who instituted legal proceedings. We did not participate in this process. The Accountability Act revised the act on—

Justice committee  Section 80 did exist, but it was not used. It was revised. There is now an offence for cases where an agent of the Crown commits fraud. It is not up to us to determine whether or not charges should be laid under the Federal Accountability Act or the Criminal Code. Investigators make this decision.

Justice committee  I think that we will have the requisite independence. However, I do not like the expression you used: “Pursue matters that the public doesn't like”. Whether or not the public likes something is not a factor we consider when we institute legal proceedings.

Justice committee  I'd indicated to Ms. Jennings—

Justice committee  We do.

Justice committee  We do some of that. Each of our regional offices does a business plan in which we ask them to look at their workload and look at the environment to see whether there are any new initiatives locally that might affect the workload they'll face in the future. For example, in Ontario they can look to see whether the City of Toronto has announced a new priority on cracking down on drugs.

Justice committee  Yes. When an initiative is being proposed, we are involved in the planning of the initiative. If it's an initiative that will result in an increase in the number of investigations, we'll argue that because of that, money has to be set aside to hire additional prosecutors. That's what happened with the federal policing initiative.

Justice committee  After consulting with the expert on this one, the answer generally is yes. If it's going to affect the amount of drug work we do, we will typically seek additional financing.

Justice committee  I'll start the answer and I'll let Mr. Fortin give the rest of it. Yes, we have, but we have to be mindful that there are certain areas in which it might be difficult for us to share, and access is one. For example, if you start sharing that, it means another government department has control over your document.

Justice committee  All right.

Justice committee  Indeed, but I would like to provide you with some clarification. Here, in Ottawa, our headquarters is located in the same building as the Department of Justice, but we intend to move as soon as possible. However, we have to wait until the space is available.

Justice committee  I repeat that there has been no improper interference. There are 16 regional offices. Our regional offices are often located in the same building as Department of Justice offices, because the Federal Prosecution Services also deals with justice. We decided to install different doors, develop different ID cards, but we are not going to break our lease simply to demonstrate transparency.