Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both witnesses for being here.
I see the creation of this new office as a natural extension of the spirit of this bill, in many ways. If we have, for instance, better access to information as a result of this bill, we want to have the information that may be unearthed by virtue of those new strengths dealt with promptly. Canadians not only have a right to know how their money is being spent and a right to be aware of any wrongdoing that may have occurred, but they also have a right to speedy prosecution of any maladministration or wrongdoing that may be unearthed.
So I am excited by this prospect, and I welcome this idea. I'm relieved to hear that we don't see it as being contradictory to any provincial jurisdiction, as I would have had to have found fault with that.
One of the criticisms I've heard, and it's almost a motif, a theme, of the criticism we get of the Conservative government, is that it kind of smacks of the American model. This isn't a prime concern of mine, but I would like you to clarify, perhaps, if you could. People have negative images of, I think his name was Starr, in the Clinton period. They felt they had a special office that was there to harass the government in a quasi-political way.
Could you differentiate for us how this new office is different from the similar prosecutor's office in the United States?