Thank you.
Good morning gentlemen, Mr. Saunders and Ms. Proulx.
The new Director of Public Prosecutions testified following the adoption of Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act. The party I represent saw the need to set up a system in order to guarantee the independence of the director and prevent any political interference. That is what Mr. Lemay believes as well. We get the feeling that this is the objective sought by the new director.
I fully understand that you will be given a budget so that you can institute various proceedings and maintain relations with the provinces, etc. Mr. Ménard raised a very interesting point. Had the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions existed at the time of the sponsorship scandal, would we have had to wait for two years to elapse and for a Gomery inquiry to have taken place in order to file complaints?
Usually, one a director is independent, he is independent from political power. If he is independent from political power today, perhaps he was less available beforehand. I don't know because I wasn't there. For two years, we saw individuals appearing on television in conjunction with the sponsorship scandal. It took a Gomery inquiry to finally be able to file an ordinary complaint of fraud, something that government attorneys are used to doing.
Why did we have to wait so long? Will this new system of having a Director of Public Prosecutions enable us to resolve this problem so that we can proceed more quickly in similar cases instead of having to wait two or three years?