Justice Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

The ratio that you gave us of five police to one prosecutor, what's the basis of that? When I think of that, if I put five more police officers on the street, I'm expecting I may also see a decline in crime because they act as a preventative. So I wonder where the ratio came from, and is it valid when you have a declining crime rate?

[Brian Saunders]

I'll turn this over to Mr. Fortin in a moment, but let me explain one thing about the ratio. It only applies when there is a federal initiative to add new police officers--the RCMP. When the Ontario Provincial Police or the Toronto city police force adds new police officers, and frequently these police officers are engaged—as you know, in Toronto there's a guns and gangs initiative—we do not get additional resources for that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

But you have additional prosecutions.

[Brian Saunders]

We might have additional prosecutions flowing from that.

I'd also say that we've noticed that our file caseload over the last couple of years has not increased. It has sort of remained stable in the south, in the southern provinces, but we're finding that in our north, in the northern territories, where we conduct the Criminal Code prosecutions, sadly, the rate has gone up.

Maybe Mr. Fortin can explain the five-to-one ratio.

[Dr. Marc Fortin, Acting General Counsel and Director, Office of the General Counsel and Director, Public Prosecution Service of Canada]

The five-to-one ratio was developed over an analysis of several years' worth of data. Which data? It covers the types of cases we have, the type of complexity we have, where we prosecute, and also the direct and downstream impacts of the work performed by investigative agencies, number one being the RCMP, for example. It depends also on the type of work that a new initiative would bring to PPSC, as well as--

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Perhaps I could interrupt. This is information I want. If this is in a written form, that's all I would require. Perhaps I could simply see the analysis that was done, if it's in a written form.

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

Yes, I could provide--

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Fortin, is it a written analysis?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

I could provide a note, following the notes I have, quite quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

That would suffice, if you could do that, Mr. Fortin, and supply it to the committee.

Is that the conclusion?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

Through you, Chair, I did see the numbers in terms of how many staff are employed, how many prosecutors and private sector lawyers are involved, and noticed that in 2006 federal prosecutors were involved in more than 60,000 cases. For an understanding of the number, what would the caseload be like in terms of distributing those cases and how that might happen? Second, have you done an evaluation of the number of cases you have against the overall budget that you have allocated, determining whether or not you are able to use that as a basis for going forward in terms of budgeting?

[Brian Saunders]

Your first question dealt with the division of labour between agents and staff counsel, I assume.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Yes, I think so, but more along the lines of.... There are not very many departments in any of the ministries that have the type of interaction, in terms of private sector and public sector. So the question, to be a little clearer, is asking how that interaction works and how the determination is made with respect to who is allocated what work.

[Brian Saunders]

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.

[George Dolhai, Acting Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Headquarters, Public Prosecution Service of Canada]

I'd just add that in general, the less complex work would go to the agents. More complex work would be handled by staff counsel.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

The follow-up to that question was in terms of the figure that was put out there—as I understood it, 60,000 cases in 2006.

You do your review, obviously, with respect to how the year went, and then you do your forward projections. Do you use the caseload, and obviously the number of prosecutors, in determining that? Do you actually do an estimated cost per case, or is that not how you do your work in terms of that budget?

[Brian Saunders]

We can do a cost per case, but averages are very misleading. We do a sorting or analysis of our caseload, and we categorize them by level of complexity. We have low, moderate, high, and what we call mega-cases. A low case, for example, is a simple possession case. It doesn't take too much time and is done relatively inexpensively.

On the agent side, we have benchmarks that we have developed over the years, which tell us how much time an average case of that nature should take. If an agent takes more time than the benchmark, we contact the agent and say, “Is there a problem here? You're taking more time than normal.” If they're spending too little time, we also contact them and say, “Are you spending enough time? We want to make sure we're getting a quality product here.” So we use that on that side.

With respect to the work we do, as Mr. Dolhai pointed out, we do the more complex files. We keep those for ourselves. It's very hard to come up with an average cost of those cases, because they differ so much in the requirements they have. Some of them will have teams of four or five lawyers working full-time for a period of time. As you can well understand, that would skew any figure if you were to add that into the mix with a simple possession case, which takes a couple of hours.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I'm going to turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Moore, but I have one quick question.

Obviously, with all the prosecutors we have across the country, there is availability to an individual who requires either one of our official languages. Is that totally available?

[Brian Saunders]

We have the capacity throughout the country to provide a prosecution in both official languages.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Moore, you have one and a half minutes.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

I'll try to make it quick.

In a scenario where someone has multiple offences, some of which would be prosecuted by way of a provincial prosecution and some of which would be handled by federal prosecution, how do you cost for that if the total case is going to be carried by one method or another, either by federal prosecution or by provincial prosecution? And if the provincial prosecution carries a case, does your office and your budget help defray some of the cost that you would have incurred otherwise?

[Brian Saunders]

We have arrangements with all the provinces. We call them major-minor arrangements. What that means is that we look at the charges against individuals and we determine the major charge against the individual. If it's a charge that is normally prosecuted by the province, they will undertake the provincial prosecution and the federal prosecution, and they'll do so at their own expense. Likewise, if the major charge is a federally prosecuted charge—and there are some charges under the Criminal Code that the province normally does—we will undertake the prosecution of all the offences and we will bear the cost of that prosecution. So that's the understanding we reach with the provinces, and it's the understanding that has been in place for many years.