Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's chief of staff, David Livingston, in relation to hiring someone to illegally wipe government hard drives. Until 2012, the PPSC was also responsible for collections of fines levied by courts through its successful prosecutions. The in-house collections team was scheduled to be eliminated in favour of an external collection agency. At the time of elimination, approximately $129 million (CAD) was outstanding in debt, across approximately 8,000 debtees. The PPSC retained the ability to garnish wages or pursue assets if fines were not paid. By 2018, outstanding debts had decreased to $8 million across 6,300 accounts, and a private company, Partners in Credit Inc., had been retained since 2016. History The Public Prosecution Service of Canada was established in 2006 as an agency independent of the Department of Justice Canada, in order to remedy problems associated with the former Federal Prosecution Service being located within the Department. The enacting legislation is the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, which was located within the Federal Accountability Act but is now listed as a separate statute. It was introduced by the president of the Treasury Board, John Baird, and received Royal Assent on December 12, 2006. The rationale for its creation was written by Wade Riordan Raaflaub of the Law and Government Division on March 2, 2006. SNC Lavalin Affair The most prolific instance of the PPSC in the Canadian public eye was its role in the SNC-Lavalin affair, where the Prime Minister's Office asked in an allegedly improper fashion for the Attorney General of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould to override a decision by Director of Public Prosecutions Kathleen Roussel to not extend a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin after its guilty plea in a fraud case in 2019. The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould did not agree to requests from senior Prime Minister's Office officials, or a later overture by Canada's most senior civil servant Michael Wernick. She allegedly objected to overriding the director without gazetting the findings. As a result of Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould's actions, the PPSC was not overridden, despite the Attorney General's statutory authority to do so. The deferred prosecution agreement was a new addition to Canada's legal landscape and authority was given to the Director of Public Prosecutions. If SNC-Lavalin had received a deferred prosecution, it would not be subject to approximately 10-year sanctions from bidding on public infrastructure contracts in Canada. Instead, the bribery charge was eventually