Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 4, Exemptions from the Right of Access. Updated 8 April 2024. 280 IPC Findings In Review Report 298-2019, the Commissioner considered common interest privilege. The Saskatoon Board of Police Commissioners (Board) asserted that common interest privilege applied. Upon review, the Commissioner established the two-part test and found that there was a common interest privilege between the Board and the Saskatoon Police Service members. Furthermore, that the sharing of the records did not constitute a waiver of the solicitor-client privilege that applied to the records. Legislative Privilege Legislative privilege (also known as parliamentary privilege) is a unique class privilege that extends to members of the Legislative Assembly immunity to do their legislative work.965 It has been defined as “the sum of the privileges, immunities and powers enjoyed by the Senate, the House of Commons and provincial legislative assemblies, and by each member individually, without which they could not discharge their functions.”966 Legislative bodies in Canada have inherent parliamentary privileges which flow from their nature and function in a Westminster model of parliamentary democracy. By shielding some areas of legislative activity from external review, parliamentary privilege helps preserve the separation of powers. It grants the legislative branch of government the autonomy it requires to perform its constitutional functions. Parliamentary privilege also plays an important role in our democratic tradition because it ensures that elected representatives have the freedom to vigorously debate laws and to hold the executive to account. However, inherent privileges are limited to those which are necessary for legislative bodies to fulfill their constitutional functions.967 The reach of inherent privilege extends only so far as is “necessary to protect legislators in the discharge of their legislative and deliberative functions, and the legislative assembly’s work in holding the government to account for the conduct of the country’s business”.968 965 Service Alberta, FOIP Guidelines and Practices: 2009 Edition, Chapter 4 at p. 199. 966 Chagnon v. Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec, [2018] 2 SCR 687, 2018 SCC 39 (CanLII) at [19]. 967 Chagnon v. Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec, [2018] 2 SCR 687, 2018 SCC 39 (CanLII) at [1] and [2]. 968 Chagnon v. Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec, [2018] 2 SCR 687, 2018 SCC 39 (CanLII) at [27] referencing Canada (House of Commons) v. Vaid, 2005 SCC 30 (CanLII), [2005] 1 S.C.R. 667 at [41].
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