By opening his mouth on Monday, former attorney general Peter MacKay says Justin Trudeau has already waived any privilege that stops Jody Wilson-Raybould from saying whether she was pressured to interfere in a criminal case.

“The PM may have stepped in it frankly,” MacKay, a former Conservative minister and now partner at Baker & McKenzie LLP, told iPolitics on Tuesday.

Wilson-Raybould resigned Tuesday amid a growing scandal around allegations the prime minister’s office tried to pressure her to interfere in SCN-Lavalin’s case in Quebec.

Last week, the Globe and Mail reported that former justice minister Wilson-Raybould was pressured to force the Public Prosecution Service of Canada to strike a deal with the engineering and construction giant that would see it avoid a criminal trial, while not admitting any criminal wrongdoing.

In its story, The Globe said Wilson-Raybould resisted that pressure. The prosecution is proceeding with a trial, but SNC-Lavalin is appealing that decision in court.

Until now the former justice minister has said she can’t speak to the allegations because of solicitor-client privilege that the government holds in its discussions with her. But MacKay said that issue is moot because Trudeau disclosed part of a conversation he had with her about SNC-Lavalin.

“She confirmed for me a conversation we had this fall where I told her directly that any decisions on matters involving the director of public prosecutions were hers alone,” Trudeau said on Monday in Vancouver.

MacKay said that amounts to an “implied waiver” and it should allow Wilson-Raybould to at least answer the question of whether she was pressured to intervene.

Implied waiving is triggered “when you start to release dribs and drabs or only partial recollections of a conversation,” he said. “If you open it up, then that is implied waiving of privilege.”

The executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Michael Bryant, agreed with that assessment.

“You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” Bryant said. “You can’t share the parts of the solicitor-client confidential information that make you look good and then leave out the parts that make you look bad. The privilege is held by the client and lost as soon as he or she discloses part of the conversation.”

Bryant is the former Liberal attorney general of Ontario.

“Either the communications are entirely privileged, or they’re not privileged, it’s one or the other,” he said. “Once you remove privilege from part of a conversation, the entirety of the conversation is no longer privileged.”

MacKay said while Wilson-Raybould would still be limited in what she says about the allegations, she would be able to answer the most relevant question: Was there inappropriate pressure applied? Was she asked to intervene? And did she receive direction or implied direction from the prime minister’s office?

The Conservatives have called on Trudeau to expressly waive solicitor-client privilege in the case, but the prime minister said Tuesday evening that is still being reviewed.

“There’s a real danger, that’s been flagged for me, of unintended consequences,” he said, “particularly because there are two court cases ongoing, directly related to this matter, that could be impacted by such a decision.”

In her resignation letter, Wilson-Raybould said she has hired former Supreme Court justice Thomas Cromwell to advise her on whether she can speak publicly about the allegations.

Despite the confidence voiced by MacKay and Bryant, and the calls from Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer for Trudeau to waive privilege, a University of Ottawa law professor says doing so is not as black and white as suggested.

“It’s a complex issue,” said Errol Mendes, a professor of constitutional and international law. “People should stop mouthing off before they know what the facts are.”

He lauded Wilson-Raybould for staying mum in the face of intense public pressure to clear the air and called her decision to hire Cromwell “wise.”

“Before anyone else says she’s not being fair for not giving more details, she’s being absolutely appropriate in terms of law, morals and ethics,” Mendes said.

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“Solicitor-client privilege is pretty much close to an absolute right. For that reason she has to be very careful.”

That’s true even if those on the client side — that being the government in this case — start edging around the issue, as the prime minister did with his comments Monday.

“To what extent is that a waiver,” Mendes asked. “She’s being absolutely dead-on in terms of her legal and constitutional obligations.”

The deal SNC-Lavalin was seeking is called a deferred prosecution agreement or DPA. When a company is accused of criminal activity, a DPA allows them to make a deal with a prosecutor to avoid a criminal trial and conviction, while paying a hefty fine and committing to measures to become a better corporate citizen.

The Liberals made DPAs a legal option in Canada last year. It was buried in the government’s omnibus budget bill.

Mendes said in Canada, there is judicial supervision over DPAs. Because of that supervision clause — which is similar to the UK model — it’s appropriate for the minister to consult with colleagues on the matter.

“Trudeau can consult and he can give advice. Anything beyond that is a serious violation.”

If it went beyond that and it was done without the consent or understanding of the prime minister, then those involved should be sanctioned immediately, he said.

“Then you have the issue of whether or not that still implicates the government.”

At this point, Mendes said people are jumping the gun and assuming things did go beyond that.

“I’m not clearing anybody. But please try and find the evidence first as to whether it was just advice, who was giving it and whether it crossed the line into inappropriate and troubling pressure,” he said.

He added: “Good lawyers and politicians should see the evidence before they start slamming things around like criminal action and criminal activity.”

The evidence won’t come by the way of hyper-partisan mechanisms or the rhetoric that’s being bandied about. Rather, it will come from Ethics and Conflict of Interest Commissioner Mario Dion, who announced Monday his office is investigating the allegations of interference.

“The ethics officer, he has the resources and ability to get to the bottom of this,” Mendes said. “While he doesn’t have a lot of sanctioning power, in some cases you don’t need it. If the culprits are identified, things happen. They will be sanctioned.”

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