Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is a question that's a little bit off the wall, and I forgive you if you don't have an immediate answer. But I would like an answer, which you can provide in writing, when it's obtained, through the clerk.
Under parliamentary law, which is part of our constitutional law in Canada, Parliament has long had the ability to request that the Attorney General, who normally sits in the House, undertake a prosecution. An example would be in relation to a perjury. Parliament itself, of course, has the ability to address prevarication, perjury, and other things with its witnesses, but on occasion Parliament may be of the view that it is in the public interest for Parliament not to take these steps, but rather to have the Attorney General, on behalf of the Crown in the public interest, take those measures.
Given that we have now created a department of public prosecutions and separated, in theory, the decision about who prosecutes, and when and where, from the Attorney General and delegated it to the Director of Public Prosecutions, if that's the right term, could you advise on the public record—because this may come up in the future, since we're reorganizing the flowchart, if I can put it that way—to whom Parliament would direct its directive, in the event it wished a public prosecution of a perjury to take place outside Parliament? Should it be to the Director of Public Prosecutions, with whom Parliament has no direct connection, or should it be to or through the Attorney General, where Parliament does have a very real connection and where the law is already established?