Does section 25 of the Access to Records Act, which provides exemptions to disclosure under the Corporations Privileges Act, apply to solicitor-client privilege?

None of this supports the view that section 25 somehow reduces the scope to be given to the exemptions provided for in the Act. Once the reviewing authority concludes that a record contains exempt information, it must then address its mind to the possibility of excising the exempt information from the record and disclosing the balance of the document, subject to the requirement that the remaining parts retain some coherence: see Blank v. Canada (Minister of Justice), 2005 FC 1551 (CanLII), [2005] F.C.J. No. 1927, at para. 36. There is no possible conflict between section 25 and the provisions of the Act which provide exemptions to disclosure. Section 25 simply provides that those parts which are not exempt continue to be subject to disclosure if disclosure is meaningful. The fact that exemption in favour of solicitor-client privilege has its origins in the common law is irrelevant to the operation of section 25. It is the fact of exemption which is material not the source of the exemption.