Mr. Speaker, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, PPSC, was created on December 12, 2006, when the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, part 3 of the Federal Accountability Act, came into force.
The PPSC is an independent organization, reporting to Parliament through the Attorney General of Canada, and is responsible for prosecuting offences under more than 50 federal statutes and for providing prosecution-related legal advice to law enforcement agencies.
Correspondence between the PPSC and other government departments mainly comprises communications between crown counsel and various investigative agencies, and is protected by solicitor-client privilege and/or litigation privilege. As well, in order to identify all correspondence with other government departments, it would be necessary to conduct a manual search of the files and records of all PPSC employees and agents, which is not feasible given the operational and time demands required to do so.