Canada’s high court probes religious protections for personal records

Two Jehovah's Witnesses congregation elders argued before the Supreme Court of Canada that being required to hand personal records on two former congregants to British Columbia's privacy commissioner would violate their religious freedom. The case began in 2020 when former members Gabriel Liberty Wall and Gregory Westgarde each requested their own files, and elders refused, calling the documents confidential religious communications.

In Westgarde's case, the Coldstream congregation initially denied any such records existed before later admitting they did. An adjudicator ordered disclosure so she could review the documents herself under B.C.'s Personal Information Protection Act, a decision the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld in 2024, finding religious freedom is 'not absolute.'

At the Supreme Court, the elders' attorney argued the privacy law fails to specify protections for religious groups the way it does for journalists, while the former congregants' attorney countered that an independent review is the only way to confirm confidentiality claims are genuine. Justice Malcolm Rowe appeared sympathetic to the religious freedom argument, calling it 'a right,' not a privilege.

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