OTTAWA—It’s complicated.

That, in sum, is what Jody Wilson-Raybould told reporters when she turned up at the Liberal government’s cabinet meeting Tuesday. The opposition continues to call on Wilson-Raybould to talk about allegations first reported by the Globe and Mail Feb. 7 that officials in the Prime Minister’s Office pressured her to settle fraud and corruption charges against SNC-Lavalin.

But Wilson-Raybould said it’s not so simple. She was Justin Trudeau’s justice minister and attorney general when the pressure was allegedly applied. That means she is bound by “solicitor-client privilege,” a centuries-old principle that cloaks what is said between a lawyer and her client in legally protected confidentiality.

“The rules and laws around privilege, around confidentiality, around my responsibility as a Member of Parliament, my ethical and professional responsibilities as a lawyer, are layered and incredibly complicated,” she said.

Let’s go over the basics:

What is solicitor-client privilege?

The Supreme Court of Canada has described solicitor-client privilege as a fundamental principle of our justice system. It means that communications between a lawyer (in this case, the then-attorney general Wilson-Raybould) and her client (the Liberal cabinet led by Trudeau) are protected secrets.

This is considered vital to the legal process, because people need to be able to trust their lawyers, and lawyers need their clients to tell them everything if they want to represent them in the best way.

“It’s meant to cover everything you say to your lawyer,” said Paul Champ, a litigation lawyer in Ottawa. “For your lawyer to present the best defence possible, you should feel free to say anything to your lawyer ... without fear or concern.”

The principle remains in place even after the lawyer’s relationship with the client is over, said Andrew Martin, an assistant law professor at the University of British Columbia. “It’s for the benefit of the client,” he explained. “If you knew that once the person was no longer your lawyer they could tell people what you told them, you wouldn’t be that eager to tell them everything.”

In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that solicitor-client privilege “recognizes that the justice system depends for its vitality on full, free and frank communication between those who need legal advice and those who are best able to provide it ... The resulting confidential relationship between solicitor and client is a necessary and essential condition of the effective administration of justice.”

Can it be lifted?

Yes. That’s what the opposition has been pleading Trudeau to do. As the head of the Liberal cabinet, Trudeau is the client in the solicitor-client relationship, and can therefore waive any confidentiality that relationship affords, said Howard Anglin, a lawyer and executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, who worked as prime minister Stephen Harper’s deputy chief of staff.

Anglin said it’s important to note that only the client—and not the lawyer—can waive privilege.

Former Conservative justice minister Peter MacKay is among those who argue that Trudeau has already waived solicitor-client privilege by denying his office pressured Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case, and describing his conversation with her about the matter on Sept. 17.*

Anglin said that, in general, the client waives privilege when he starts revealing previously confidential details about what he has disclosed to his lawyer. In his view, Trudeau has “probably now crossed the line into waiving privilege.” This is called “implicit” waiving.

But Martin said the principle is considered so sacrosanct that lawyers would likely be wary of publicly discussing matters previously considered confidential just because the client revealed some information.

Besides, as Wilson-Raybould said Tuesday, this situation is more complicated than that.

How so?

This isn’t just any solicitor-client relationship. This involves Canada’s attorney general, the Prime Minister’s Office and cabinet, and a criminal prosecution against a multibillion-dollar engineering company.

Champ said the fact that the discussions in question involved ministers of the Crown in some cases adds another layer: cabinet confidentiality. This is a fundamental principle of our Westminster governing system, which makes secret what is said around the cabinet table.

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On top of that, there is the “ethical duty” of confidentiality that a lawyer has for conversations with their clients, which Martin said is considered “wider” than solicitor-client privilege. It covers information a lawyer might glean about a client that is irrelevant to the case they’re working on, such as corporate secrets or personal circumstances.

And then there’s what is known as “litigation privilege,” which the prime minister has alluded to in this case. As Champ explained, this confidentiality exists to protect information about legal strategy in an upcoming trial—such as the criminal case against SNC-Lavalin, and the company’s judicial appeal calling for mediation.

It makes for a thicket of confidentiality considerations that Wilson-Raybould will have to navigate when—and if—she finally speaks about what happened.

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