A good starting point is what we had before and what we have now. Before 2006 at the federal level we had what Mr. Stephen Owen, in a paper he prepared on prosecutions in 1990, described as a traditional model: the prosecution services are located within the department that is presided over by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General. There is a reporting hierarchy leading from the prosecutors to an assistant deputy attorney general in charge of prosecutions to the minister. Typically, there are policy guidelines.
With the establishment of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, we have been moved out of the Department of Justice into a new organization. The prosecutors are appointed and receive delegations from the director, and only the director reports to the Attorney General. Then the director, to safeguard his independence, is insulated from any pressure from the Attorney General by, in part, this process here. In the statute there are a number of things.
Once he's appointed, it's a seven-year term. The salary can't be changed; he can only be removed from office by a resolution that is supported by the House of Commons. There can't be any pressure placed on the incumbent by virtue of those protections found in the law.