Supreme Court of Canada hears Jehovah's Witness congregations' challenge to order to show former members' records to BC privacy adjudicator

The Supreme Court of Canada heard argument on Friday 9 October 2026 in an appeal by two Jehovah's Witness elders, two British Columbia congregations and Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Canada. They are challenging an order that the congregations hand over records about two former members to an official of the province's privacy regulator. At the end of the hearing the court reserved judgment, meaning it will decide later and issue written reasons on a date it has not announced. That is the latest entry on the court's docket as of 10 October 2026.^[1]

The appellants are elders John Vabuolas and Paul Sidhu, the Grand Forks Congregation and the Coldstream Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, and Watch Tower Canada. The respondents, the parties defending the order, are British Columbia's Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Attorney General of British Columbia, and the two former members, Gabriel-Liberty Wall and Gregory Westgarde.^[1]

According to Courthouse News Service, which reported on the hearing, the elders' lawyer asked the court to quash (cancel) the order, arguing that the province's privacy law itself breaches their religious freedom. The former members' lawyer argued that letting a neutral official check the records was "reasonable, appropriate, and necessary."^[2]

The case asks how far a provincial privacy law can reach into records a religious body says are confidential. The case summary prepared by the court's Registrar frames the question as whether British Columbia's privacy statute empowers the commissioner to infringe freedom of religion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada's constitutional bill of rights, and when "private and confidential religious information" is subject to disclosure under secular law.^[1]

What the former members asked for

The law at the centre of the case is British Columbia's Personal Information Protection Act, known as PIPA. It governs how private organizations collect, use and disclose personal information. Section 23 gives a person a general right, on request, to a copy of their own personal information held by an organization, subject to listed exceptions.^[3]

Both men are former Jehovah's Witnesses. The BC Court of Appeal said each asked for his records "several years after leaving."^[3]

On 10 March 2020, Mr. Wall asked the Grand Forks Congregation for any document that contained information about him or referred to him, and whether it had been passed to anyone else. The congregation identified his "S-21 Publisher Record Cards" and an internal record of his disassociation, an "S-77 Form." It told him he could make an appointment to look at the cards but not the form, which it called "a privileged and confidential religious communication."^[4]

On 31 October 2020, Mr. Westgarde made a similar request to the Coldstream Congregation. The congregation first replied that it held none of his personal information, but had a sealed record showing he was no longer a Jehovah's Witness. It withheld that record on the same grounds.^[4]

Each man then asked the commissioner's office to review the congregation's refusal. Mediation failed, and the office opened a formal inquiry.^[4]

The congregations' position

The congregations and elders say the withheld records are confidential religious documents that only authorized elders may see, and that disclosing them even to the regulator would violate their faith.^[3]

Their evidence came partly from Kevin Knaus, a member of Watch Tower Canada who described himself as a full-time minister since October 2007. He said elders are bound by "ecclesiastical duty" not to reveal confidential religious communications, and cited Proverbs 11:13: "A slanderer goes about revealing confidential talk, but the trustworthy person keeps a confidence."^[3]

He explained that when a member chooses disassociation, which he described as formally renouncing membership, a committee of three elders meets with the person to attempt to restore them spiritually. The committee keeps a written summary of its "spiritual deliberations," which is sealed in an envelope and kept "under lock and key."^[3]

Mr. Vabuolas said the record about Mr. Wall contains his name, gender, birth date, baptism date, and the date and method of his disassociation. The rest, he said, is the elders' "spiritual deliberations and handling of the matter." He said that disclosing it to Mr. Wall "or even to the OIPC Adjudicator would severely violate our religious practice and my personal conscience as an elder." Mr. Sidhu gave similar evidence about Mr. Westgarde.^[3]

Mr. Westgarde filed his own affidavit, a sworn written statement. He said he did not know exactly what decision had been made about him, and that his meetings with elders were not confessional but concerned the denomination's beliefs and policy.^[3]

The 2022 production order

The inquiry was decided by an adjudicator: an official who decides a dispute on the commissioner's behalf, named in the court records as Ms. Barker. Watch Tower Canada and the two elders were added as parties at the congregations' request, and the two inquiries were joined into one.^[4][3]

While the inquiry was under way, the appellants filed a separate lawsuit in April 2021 seeking a declaration that PIPA violated their Charter rights. Justice Winteringham of the BC Supreme Court paused that lawsuit on 20 September 2021, finding that the commissioner was competent to decide the Charter issues.^[3]

The congregations did not produce the records. The adjudicator said that without seeing them she could not decide whether they held the men's personal information, whose information was in them, or whether any exception applied. She wrote that she was "not confident" the congregations' description of the records was accurate.^[3]

On 20 June 2022, in Order P22-03, she ordered the congregations to produce to her, for review, all records in their custody or control containing Mr. Wall's and Mr. Westgarde's personal information. She relied on section 38(1)(b) of PIPA, which lets the commissioner require a person to produce documents during an inquiry. The order was a step within the inquiry: it did not give the men any records.^[4]

On the constitutional question, she found that PIPA's access right and production power infringed section 2(a) of the Charter, which guarantees "freedom of conscience and religion." She accepted that the elders sincerely believe no one but authorized elders may see the records. She then found the infringement justified under section 1. Section 1 allows the government to place "reasonable limits" on Charter rights if it can show the limit is justified "in a free and democratic society."^[3][4]

Her reasons included that the records would go only to her, for the narrow purpose of deciding the inquiry, and that section 41 of PIPA bars the commissioner from disclosing information gathered under the Act except in limited circumstances.^[3]

The BC Supreme Court: judicial review dismissed

The appellants then sought judicial review, asking a court to examine whether the adjudicator's decision was lawful. Filing their court application (a "petition") automatically paused the production order.^[4]

They argued that PIPA as a whole was unconstitutional. As one remedy, they proposed adding the word "religious" to an existing exemption that keeps the Act from applying to information used for "journalistic, artistic or literary purposes."^[4]

Justice Wilson of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the province's main trial court, heard the case over three days in September 2023 and dismissed the petition on 8 January 2024. He agreed the elders' religious freedom was infringed, and found the infringement justified.^[4]

He rejected the proposed religious exemption, reasoning that it would either still require someone to check what the records were for, or would mean accepting an organization's word "at face value." That, he wrote, would "completely impede" the goal of giving people access to their information held by religious organizations.^[4]

The appellants argued that the records concern membership, which courts do not decide. Justice Wilson noted that in Highwood Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses (Judicial Committee) v. Wall (2018) the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that membership in a religious group is a private matter for the group. He accepted there "may be a legitimate concern" that the elders' confidential communications, if disclosed, could be spread further, but said that concern could not be assessed while the records were unseen. He also wrote: "Freedom of religion is not absolute, and courts have been reluctant to exclude religious organizations from laws of general application."^[4]

He concluded that the order represented "a balancing of the competing interests." He noted that if the adjudicator later ordered anything disclosed to the two men, the appellants could seek judicial review again.^[4]

The BC Court of Appeal: a different route to the same result

The Court of Appeal for British Columbia dismissed the appeal on 21 March 2025. Justice Horsman wrote the unanimous reasons, with Justices Dickson and Fleming agreeing.^[3]

The court reached the same outcome by different reasoning. It held that the adjudicator was wrong to find that the provisions of PIPA themselves infringed the Charter. Read properly, it said, the Act lets the commissioner take an organization's Charter rights into account when deciding whether to order records produced:^[3]

It then asked whether this particular order was reasonable, and held that it was. It said the adjudicator had weighed the elders' rights against the law's purposes. It also rejected the argument that the Charter requires a blanket exemption for all information collected for a religious purpose. It pointed to birth, death and marriage records as examples that could be disclosed without infringing religious freedom.^[3]

On the argument that the adjudicator should have accepted at face value the appellants' assertion that disclosure would unjustifiably infringe their Charter rights, the court said that approach would give "priority in every case" to an organization's assertion, which it called "tantamount to the type of categorical exemption" it had found was not constitutionally required.^[3]

The road to Ottawa

The appellants then applied for leave to appeal, the permission the Supreme Court of Canada must grant before it hears a case. The court granted leave on 20 November 2025. In December 2025 the appellants filed a notice of constitutional question, a formal notice that they are challenging the validity of a law.^[1]

Both sides filed factums, the written legal arguments each party submits before a hearing, along with replies.^[1]

Nine applicants, some applying jointly, were given permission to take part as interveners: outside parties allowed to make arguments because the case may affect them or the wider law. Justice Rowe granted their motions on 12 May 2026:^[1]

• Attorney General of Canada
• British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
• British Columbia Humanist Association
• Association for Reformed Political Action
• Christian Legal Fellowship
• Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and Canadian Centre for Christian Charities, jointly
• David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
• Canadian Civil Liberties Association
• Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario

Motions to intervene by the Public Interest Litigation Institute and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers were dismissed.^[1]

Under the order, interveners could not "express a position on the disposition of the appeal," raise new issues or add evidence. The Attorney General of Canada was allowed ten minutes of oral argument. Each other intervener or group was allowed five.^[1]

What was argued on 9 October

The court's docket lists nine judges on the panel and records a notice of remote participation by a judge; the entry does not name the judge.^[1]

According to Courthouse News, Jayden MacEwan, arguing for the elders, said it was not only the lower rulings that violated religious freedom but PIPA itself. He noted that the law contains exemptions for groups such as journalists but does not say how it should apply to religious groups.^[2]

The outlet reported that Justice Glenn Joyal appeared to think the adjudicator had taken the right steps, since she only wanted to review the documents herself. MacEwan disagreed. "The adjudicator reviewing the records is nonminimal impairment, and it's not constitutional," he said. "Minimal impairment" is the part of the section 1 test that asks whether a limit restricts a right no more than necessary.^[2][4]

Kevin Smith, for Mr. Wall and Mr. Westgarde, argued that PIPA was necessary for democracy, Courthouse News reported. He questioned how the elders could refuse his clients their own information on grounds of confidentiality while also refusing to let an independent third party confirm that claim.^[2]

The outlet reported that Justice Malcolm Rowe seemed troubled by any intrusion on religious liberty. "This isn't a privilege; this is a right," he said. "Freedom of religion is in the charter to make sure that the state does not intrude into an area of individual and community behavior that is off-limits."^[2]

Notices filed before the hearing show that lawyers for British Columbia's privacy commissioner, the provincial Attorney General and each intervener were scheduled to present oral argument.^[1]

What happens next

The order under appeal requires only that the records be shown to the adjudicator. It does not decide whether Mr. Wall or Mr. Westgarde will receive any of them. That question would be decided under a separate section of PIPA once the adjudicator had reviewed them, and the BC courts noted that such a decision could itself be challenged.^[4][3]

Both BC courts left the production order in place. The appellants are asking the Supreme Court of Canada to quash it.^[2]