In terms of the minister's office and the Prime Minister's Office, I can tell you that in my experience throughout the case there was no discussion with the minister's office or the Prime Minister's Office about the case itself in terms of what we would put forward to prosecutors and so forth. We did not get guidance directly from the minister's office or the Prime Minister's Office at any point that I'm aware of.
In terms of the length of the investigation, which you also referenced, we needed to establish that an offence took place in Canada, which required an in-depth investigation that had to look at all of the elements. As the presiding judge noted, what took place in the United States was very different in terms of the offences that were pursued, and the admission of guilt by Volkswagen in the United States did not carry any specific weight in terms of a finding of guilt or innocence in Canada. Certainly, everyone was aware of it and considered it, but there was no rubber-stamping of U.S. decisions in Canadian courts.
We needed to conduct our own investigation. We needed to establish the facts that were both the offence in Canada and the relationship with the United States in terms of the vehicles that were tested there and then brought into Canada, as well as the international scene, which took into account Volkswagen the international organization and its relationship with its Canadian and U.S. counterparts.
It's important to us to do a comprehensive investigation, and that is what we put forward in our report to Crown counsel, which is standard practice for any law enforcement organization. It detailed the offence in Canada. It detailed the severity of the crimes. Then the Public Prosecution Service of Canada took that information and pursued the best possible outcome according to what they believed was in the public interest.