Justice committee  First, I want to point out that the individual's status is not what is relevant when we make the decision to institute proceedings. It should also not be forgotten that it is the police who conduct investigations, not us.

Justice committee  Yes. There is a process in place that allows us to have a say as to whether that will increase the demand for our services.

Justice committee  Under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, the authority of the Attorney General is delegated to the Director of Public Prosecutions. We have, in effect, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Deputy Attorney General of Canada for the purposes of conducting prosecutions

Justice committee  Today's supplementary estimates are an example of that. Where there are initiatives that affect the prosecution service, we are typically consulted on them. We are asked whether the initiative will increase demand for prosecution services. As you can see with the increased number

Justice committee  That would be part of the consideration. We do an examination of the proposed legislation to see whether there would be an increase on the demands placed upon the prosecution services.

Justice committee  There are just two elements in our supplementary estimates, and I think they're quite straightforward.

Justice committee  Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity of being here today to discuss our supplementary spending estimates. As you can see, there are only two elements in our Supplementary Estimates: first, funding related to the creation of our service

Justice committee  We rely heavily on part-time prosecutors. We have to cover courts across this country, and the agents, as we call them, are essential, because we just can't have a staff prosecutor in every small community in Canada. It's just—

Justice committee  We have regional offices in those places, but we're talking about northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan.

Justice committee  In New Brunswick, we don't have a regional office, but we have agents in New Brunswick. We do have a system of agent supervisors overseeing the agents and trying to ensure that these types of problems don't occur. If they do occur, we do take measures to address them. We can't g

Justice committee  As you might imagine, it's not a question I've given any thought to until now. The Attorney General still has a role to play as the chief law officer of the crown, and I assume the request could be directed to him or her as a member of Parliament. Apart from that, it's something

Justice committee  There is scope under the act for the Attorney General to assume conduct of a prosecution—there's still that power—or to issue a directive in respect of a particular prosecution. If Parliament established itself as being independent, it would be ironic if Parliament were to direct

Justice committee  I would hope it wouldn't happen again. I don't know the cases you're talking about. I assume it's something that happened after the Supreme Court decision in Askov, when cases across the country were thrown out because of delay. We try to ensure that our cases are handled promp

Justice committee  We do not lay charges, the investigators do. In the case of the sponsorship inquiry, I believe that it was the RCMP and the Sûreté du Québec who conducted the investigation. It was the Attorney General of Quebec who instituted legal proceedings against the individuals involved in

Justice committee  We have an Internet site that we're going to populate with information, to use the expression of the techies. We will have information about what our areas of responsibility are, so that people can go there and see it. That's the best I can do in terms of telling individuals wh