Justice Committee on March 10th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much.

We are starting with Mr. Falk.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming to committee this morning.

Thank you for that brief explanation of what your department does and the very important work that you do. I want to ask a few more questions further to the $3.4 million that you're asking for in the supplementary estimates in regard to online crime and also to international investigations. Can you expand a little further on the disposition of those funds and also the reason for the request? Was it an increase in the frequency of these particular crimes, or what?

[Brian Saunders]

As Mr. Piragoff explained when he was before you a moment ago, the act does provide for new tools to allow investigators to obtain electronic data. For example, they can get preservation orders to require Internet companies to preserve documents, or production orders to require them to produce documents. The money that we seek is to fund approximately 20 positions, because we anticipate that these new demands of these new tools will require additional advice to be given by prosecutors to investigative agencies. They will lead to new challenges in the court with respect to whether information has been gathered properly and in accordance with the provisions, and whether the provisions are constitutional or not. We expect challenges of that nature, so these additional positions will cover the work that we anticipate flowing from these new investigative tools.

Mr. Dolhai can correct me on this, but we didn't seek any additional funds for the new crimes that were introduced. We would only prosecute the crimes that he referred to, the stalking crimes, I believe, in the north. In the south and in the provinces, they would be prosecuted by provincial prosecution services.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

The amount also refers to co-operating with our international partners. Is there money abroad that is anticipated to be spent, or is the money all being left here?

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

The money, with respect to co-operation with international partners, relates to any efforts that we have as far as training with them and our overall operational co-operation are concerned.

We have a number of relationships, for example, with the United States departments of justice and homeland security. The Department of Justice is also part of that here in Canada. That's to ensure we have vehicles to ongoing communication if there's any issue, but also to provide training to them about our laws, and receive training from them, which of course we don't pay for.

In addition, there's an evaluation amount that's built in.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Nicholson.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Nicholson.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. Saunders and Mr. Dolhai, for your appearance here today. Thank you for all the work you do on behalf of Canadians.

I'm sure, Mr. Saunders, you get a fair amount of feedback from your prosecutors across this country as to the state of the law and the atmosphere in this country.

The Government of Canada has proposed that it's going to be legalizing marijuana in the near future. Have you heard any change in attitude from your prosecutors? As an MP, I'm hearing of more instances of people either growing marijuana, or there seems to be an expansion of that. Are you hearing anything in that regard? Have there been any changes in the number or the level of prosecutions related to marijuana?

[Brian Saunders]

In terms of hearing from our prosecutors, we hear occasionally that the courts are questioning why we're proceeding with these cases, given that the government has announced its intention to decriminalize or legalize the possession of marijuana in the future.

The position we have taken is quite simply that until Parliament has enacted a new law, the current law remains in force. If cases are referred to us, we will conduct our usual assessment of the cases. If they meet the threshold test for prosecuting, we will continue to prosecute the case.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Some of your prosecutors are starting to hear from judges who question why these matters are still before the courts?

[Brian Saunders]

It has been raised. In a few cases, we've heard that prosecutors were asked why they were proceeding with the case.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Interesting.

You mentioned in your opening remarks that you do recover some of your legal costs from other investigative agencies, or that you lend support to.... You said there's a limit of $22.7 million. Is that a percentage? Why and how is that ceiling calculated?

[Brian Saunders]

When we were established by the Department of Justice, we inherited its budgetary model, which was a hybrid model. Most of our budget in the prosecution service was A-based, as we used to call it. It came from the main estimates.

However, there was a certain percentage of the money in the area of regulatory prosecutions, for example, prosecution of the Labour Code or the Competition Act, that the federal prosecution service, our predecessor, recovered from the investigative agencies. We've continued with that.

As far as we could tell, there was no rhyme nor reason to the amount. I shouldn't say that so quickly. We didn't ever recover for work done for police forces, so we never recovered for work for the RCMP, for example.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Is it locked in at $22.7 million?

[Brian Saunders]

I think it's gone up.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Is there an increase incrementally each year?

[Brian Saunders]

When we started, I believe it was about $18 million or $19 million, so it's gone up in line with the increases in lawyers' salaries.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Are you keeping up to date with lawyer salaries? I know it's always a bit of an issue as to what we're paying at the federal level as opposed to the provincial or private sector lawyers.

[Brian Saunders]

At this stage, as you know, or maybe you don't know, there are negotiations ongoing between the Association of Justice Counsel representing lawyers at Justice and at our organization. Until now, in our view, we've fairly well achieved a certain degree of parity with the major prosecution services in the provinces.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Great. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Mr. Dolhai.

[George Dolhai]

I'll just add very quickly that with respect to cost recovery, as Mr. Saunders said, it's on the regulatory side. We don't recover from the police. On the regulatory side, as well as in all our prosecutions, we apply our standards. With reasonable prospect of conviction, it is in the best-served interest of the community to go ahead, and we have not had a situation where money has determined any of those decisions. Once the matter is referred to us, it proceeds independent of considerations with respect to whether or not there is that funding. We see it through and we've never had an issue.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

That's good to hear. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

We're going to move to Mr. Fraser for the Liberals, but I want to take the latitude to ask the first Liberal question. To follow up on Mr. Nicholson's question, I understand you said there are some judges who are actually questioning why you're bringing cases. Have you found any judges who have actually refused to enforce the existing law? Have you had any difference in the actual outcome of a case?

[George Dolhai]

We have one case right now.