Thank you for that question. It will take me back to my law school days, to great days at Dalhousie law school.
Essentially, to put it into perspective, in order to have confidence between clients and solicitors or barristers with regard to seeking legal advice and the ability of the particular solicitor or barrister involved to properly defend their client across a spectrum of issues--civil or criminal issues--in the case of defence counsel for the accused, you need to have what I will call that sacred area. You need to have that zone where the communications between the two are protected from being made public immediately or at least being made public in all but very narrow and controlled circumstances.
Without that, I think, in very basic terms, you'll end up with a chilling effect, whereby clients, whether they're government clients or private clients—and I worked in private practice in Halifax-Dartmouth—will simply not come and seek legal advice. I think that would be a major blow and a major disservice to the rule of law, particularly in Canada, and, I guess perhaps on a lighter note, would quickly dry up the profession of law and the business of making money through legal practice.