Justice committee  Three to four.

Justice committee  It varies from year to year.

Justice committee  Recall that we don't go after people.

Justice committee  We don't charge people either. Charges are laid by police forces.

Justice committee  That's a more accurate way of saying it.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  No, the standard is not set by statute.

Justice committee  All prosecution services have what is called a decision to prosecute standard. It's part of our role as prosecutors. We're supposed to exercise our role independently of the police forces, and review files and decide whether a file is worth proceeding with before the courts.

Justice committee  In British Columbia you have two standards. You have the substantial likelihood of conviction, but I think in cases where that standard is not met but the public interest is high, they will go down to a reasonable prospect of conviction. Provincial people use a double standard, a

Justice committee  You mean the 530 prosecutors that we have?

Justice committee  No, we have 530 prosecutors and they are spread around the country. For example, in the office in Toronto, we have 120 prosecutors there and they would be responsible for conducting prosecutions in Toronto and in southwestern Ontario. In addition to the staff prosecutors, we al

Justice committee  Yes. We keep track of our caseload. We also keep track of the time. You heard from Mr. Pentney, before me, that lawyers within the Department of Justice keep track of all their time, and we do that as well. All our prosecutors have to record the time they spend on files and the

Justice committee  As I mentioned, the day we were established in December 2006, we informed the minister's office that from then on, agents would be appointed by our office, because under the statute it says that agents are retained by the director of public prosecutions, so we took that to mean t

Justice committee  I think it's gone up.

Justice committee  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.