Thank you for your question, sir.
I had the opportunity to testify before this committee at the start of the month, if my memory serves me, and I believe you asked me the same question. I was told my answer was good, so I'm going to repeat it.
In criminal prosecutions, appearances are often as important as, if not more important than the reality. In my career as a prosecutor, which has spanned roughly 30 years at the federal and provincial level, I have never had any problem with so-called political interventions by one of the 12 or 13 attorneys general for whom I have worked.
Appearances are at times different. Over those years, there have been, unfortunately all too often, situations in which both the public and the media had a perception of political intervention, which had not occurred. That perception was conveyed by individuals who based their assertion on what I would call circumstances that might lead them to consider that there might have been political intervention, which was not the case.
Often they came to the conclusion that the people representing the Attorney General, those acting as deputy attorneys general, were close to politicians that were accountable to their political masters. Those apparent interventions might have occurred, but, and I repeat, they in fact had not.
This provision reproduces what is done elsewhere in the Commonwealth and what has been done for about 10 years in Nova Scotia, Quebec and, for a few months and in part, what has been done in British Columbia. In Nova Scotia, a DPP was created as a result of a claim that there had been political intervention.
So in response to that question, in my last appearance before the committee, I asked whether we had to wait for a scandal before creating an institution which, in appearance and reality, gives greater independence to the Director of Criminal Prosecutions, who will be selected by parliamentarians, ultimately, based on the amendments that have been tabled this morning.
Under those provisions, we are assured that, when difficult situations arise in which the claim is made that there has been political intervention, it can always be doubted, since the individual who has made the decision will be independent of all political intervention, will be free from all political contact and, in his soul and conscience, will pursue his objective of prosecuting individuals.