Canada's opposition leader threatened with lawsuit by Trudeau

Canada's opposition leader on Sunday revealed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had threatened him with a defamation case over his comments about a political scandal that has rocked the government months before the country's election.

Andrew Scheer, head of the Conservative Party, told a press conference he had received a letter from Trudeau's lawyer accusing him of "highly defamatory" comments made in response to a series of documents released by former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould at the end of March.

Trudeau has been under fire since February when Wilson-Raybould accused him and his inner circle of applying political pressure to prevent a trial of engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, which is accused of corruption in Libya.

On March 29, the ex-attorney general released 43 pages of new documents that sought to link her January demotion to another portfolio to her resistance to allegedly undue pressure to settle the SNC-Lavalin case.

Scheer in turn accused the government of lying to Canadians and of corruption. He denounced the lawsuit threat as "an intimidation tactic" by the prime minister.

"It is a further attempt to silence those who are standing up and seeking the truth," he said.

"If Mr Trudeau believes he has a case against me, I urge him to follow through on his threat immediately. Canadians want this scandal to be investigated in a legal setting where Liberals do not control the proceedings," he added.

A spokesman for Trudeau said Sunday afternoon that the letter had been sent to "put (Scheer) on notice that there are consequences for making completely false and libelous statements."