You've probably read that at present we have approximately 450 staff prosecutors and we employ about 800 agents across the country. We're required to retain agents—they aren't working for us full-time, usually—because we cover virtually every courthouse in the country and it's too expensive to have staff counsel waiting in some remote area sometimes, waiting for one or two cases to come along. It's more economical to hire an agent to do that.
The agents all report to a staff counsel who is the agents' supervisor. That's a means we use to ensure the quality of work of the agents. And, with respect, that also explains the division of labour between the agents and the staff counsel. As I say, this is for the outlying areas, but sometimes they're also used to deal with overflow. For example, in the regional office of Toronto, there might be too many cases for staff counsel, so we'll then retain an agent to assist us to get through the workload.