Thank you, Chair. I have a series of technical questions.
You talked about three different phases, but as I see it, there are five processes going on: the decision whether to arrest somebody provisionally; the decision whether to issue an authority to proceed; the extradition hearing itself, which decides whether or not there's sufficient evidence to stand trial if it were an offence in Canada, which I call the preliminary inquiry standard; the decision by the Minister of Justice whether to surrender the individual; and an overriding process, which I call number five, which is the act that allows the minister to withdraw the authority to proceed “at any time” and stipulates that “if the Minister does so, the court shall discharge the person and set aside any order made”, under either “judicial interim release or detention”.
Of these five processes, I take it that number one, the decision on whether to issue a warrant for arrest, is under the advice of the IAG, the internal group, not the minister. There's no political involvement even possible.
On the second one, the decision to issue an authority to proceed, you're saying that it's delegated by the Minister of Justice to departmental authorities. Is it true that the minister would have no opportunity to intervene or say anything about that? I understand that the officials carry out this assessment and make a determination, but is there no role for the minister even possible?