Justice committee  I believe you asked a question regarding the expenses and activities of the Director of Public Prosecutions. In the Report on Plans and Priorities four commitments are set out. These are four areas of activity for which Department of Justice funds were transferred to us. The firs

Justice committee  We set out some of those additional costs in the plans and priorities. You'll see on page 21 that we have, under the heading “Adjustments”, an indication that under the federal accountability action plan there were permanent transition costs of $7.8 million a year, and those woul

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  No, but I can describe the circumstances under which we turn to legal agents.

Justice committee  Our practice is somewhat different from that of the Department of Justice. We have 16 regional offices throughout Canada. Over 700 legal agents work for us.

Justice committee  If we are looking for a lawyer in a region of Canada where we have no office, we publish advertisements in the local newspaper and at the court itself. We then evaluate the candidates. The criteria for evaluating legal agents are substantially the same as those we use to evaluate

Justice committee  I would like to thank you for inviting us, Ms. Proulx, Mr. Fortin and myself, a second time in order to explain our main estimates for 2007-08. I'm hopeful we'll be able to answer all your questions this morning. With that, I'll leave the floor open to you to ask your questions

Justice committee  I will begin by telling you what we do. You mentioned that we prosecute under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Section 2 of the Criminal Code, in addition to defining the role of the Attorney General, indicates the sections where we are the Attorney General. In a case of

Justice committee  We are doing the same work as the former Federal Prosecution Services. Nova Scotia and, just recently, Quebec, established a Director of Public Prosecutions position. This is a decision that the legislative assemblies of these two provinces made. Here, in Canada, it is important

Justice committee  No, not at the federal level. I think that in Nova Scotia, it was decided in 1990, following the Marshall case, to set up the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. In Quebec, I don't think that the same problem occurred, but this decision was made all the same. This is a

Justice committee  The director is the Attorney General's delegate. The director will make the decision, among other things, whether or not to institute or uphold prosecutions and to appeal.

Justice committee  The Assistant Deputy Attorney General or, in some instances, the attorneys themselves used to make such decisions.

Justice committee  Our workload is quite significant nevertheless. For the year 2005-06, our attorneys were working on just under 50,000 cases. For Canada, that is quite a high figure.

Justice committee  Ultimately, yes, but according to the legislation, this responsibility now lies with the director. Should the director want to intervene in a case, he must express his intent in a written notice, which must then be published in the Canada Gazette.

Justice committee  Yes.