Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 4, Exemptions from the Right of Access. Updated 24 July 2025. 268 Statements of fact are not themselves privileged. It is the communication of those facts between a client and a lawyer that is privileged.918 The privilege applies to records that quote or discuss the legal advice. For example, information in written communications between officials or employees of a government institution in which the officials or employees quote or discuss the legal advice given by the government institution’s solicitor.919 Business or policy advice provided by a lawyer will not attract the privilege. The Supreme Court of Canada in Campbell recognized this: It is, of course, not everything done by a government (or other) lawyer that attracts solicitor-client privilege. While some of what government lawyers do is indistinguishable from the work of private practitioners, they may and frequently do have multiple responsibilities including, for example, participation in various operating committees of their respective departments. Government lawyers who have spent years with a particular client department may be called upon to offer policy advice that has nothing to do with their legal training or expertise, but draws on departmental know-how. Advice given by lawyers on matters outside the solicitor-client relationship is not protected…Whether or not solicitor-client privilege attaches in any of these situations depends on the nature of the relationship, the subject matter of the advice and the circumstances in which it is sought and rendered.920 Not all communications between a lawyer and his or her client are privileged. For example, provision of purely business advice by in-house counsel or purely social interactions between counsel and their clients will not constitute privileged communications.921 Documents that are provided to a lawyer or “which simply come into the possession of a lawyer that are not related to the provision of legal advice are not privileged”.922 Documents do not become subject to solicitor-client privilege simply because they were provided to a lawyer.923 918 Stevens v. Canada (Prime Minister), [1984] 4 F.C. 89 (Fed. C.A.) at p. 109. 919 AB IPC Order 96-020 at [133] to [134]. Consistent with Mutual Life Assurance Co. of Can. v. Canada (Deputy Attorney General), [1988], 28 C.P.C. (2D) 101 (Ont. H.C.). 920 R. v Campbell, [1999] 1 SCR 565. 921 Canada (Information Commissioner) v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2012 FC 877 (CanLII) at [17]. 922 Redhead Equipment v Canada (Attorney General), 2016 SKCA 115 (CanLII) at [33], citing General Accident Assurance Company v. Chrusz, 1999 CanLII 7320 (ON CA). 923 West v Saskatchewan (Health), 2020 SKQB 244 (CanLII) at [77].
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