With Confederation in 1867, criminal law and procedure was designated by the British North America Act as being within federal competence.' The Attorney-General of Canada was to regulate, conduct, and defend all criminal proceedings for the Crown or any federal department with respect to any subject matter, apart from the criminal code, and within the legislative jurisdiction of the federal government. The provinces through their own Attorneys-General assumed responsibility for the constitution of the criminal courts and the administration of criminal justice. Their jurisdiction included the regulation of provincial courts and law enforcement within the province as well as the prosecution of provincial and criminal code offences and the appointment of local Crown prosecutors and magistrates.2 Private prosecutions and those brought by municipal and federal government departments are conducted by specially retained lawyers.3 The prosecutor specially retained by a federal government department to prosecute locally generally remains remote from the investigatory and charging procedures, and prosecution, based as it is on individual case retainers, resembles English practice.4 Federal prosecutions represent only a small portion of the criminal prosecutions in Canada. But even in these the Provincial Attorney-General, through his provinciallyappointed Crown prosecutor, may intervene where, in the interests of justice, he deems it appropriate to do so.' In Canada, there has been a tradition of part-time Crown prosecutors, often lawyers appointed as a result of political patronage who, in addition to their private practice of law, assume prosecutorial duties. The employment of part-time prosecutors has become untenable in the face of growing urban crime and the resulting administrative