The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) and the Canadian Centre for Christian Charities (CCCC) have been granted co-intervener status before the Supreme Court of Canada in Vabuolas v. British Columbia (Information and Privacy Commissioner). The case is scheduled to be heard on October 9, 2026.
The case raises an important and unresolved constitutional question: to what extent are internal religious communications and institutional deliberations protected from examination by provincial privacy regulators and government authorities?
The dispute involves two Jehovah's Witness congregations in British Columbia whose internal church records were ordered to be turned over to the province's Information and Privacy Commissioner. The former members seeking access had voluntarily disassociated themselves from the congregations and now seek access to the private spiritual deliberations of a religious community they chose to leave. The congregations challenged the order, arguing that the records constituted privileged and confidential religious communications, but lost at both the BC Supreme Court and the BC Court of Appeal. The lower courts held that although the production orders infringed on religious freedom, the infringement was justified and reasonable under section (1) of the Canadian Charter.
The EFC is intervening because the constitutional stakes extend well beyond these two congregations. In Wall (2018) and Aga (2021), the Supreme Court recognized that the courts cannot review church membership decisions, as these are ecclesiastical matters rooted in theology and doctrine. The EFC and CCCC are arguing that these protections should not be circumvented by reframing a membership dispute as a privacy complaint.
The EFC and CCCC contend that section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the communal life of faith communities, including their ability to pray, deliberate, and discern together in confidence. The EFC is asking the Court to recognize a narrow exemption for records created during purely ecclesiastical decision-making, while recognizing state authority over civil matters such as employment and property ownership.