Mother says B.C. privacy laws limiting search for son who went missing over a year ago 

For the last 10 years, Christine Moore has been advocating for her adult son who, she says, struggles with mental illness and addiction, but privacy laws have made it challenging for her to get the information she needs to care for him. 

Since her son went missing more than a year ago, she says those issues have become all the more apparent.

Moore lives in Alberta and says it's not uncommon to go long periods of time without talking to her son. He hasn't had a cell phone since 2022, but she says he would always call at Christmas and on his birthday in January. 

"When he didn't call over Christmas or on his birthday, I knew something was wrong," she said. 

Christopher Newton, 33, went missing in December of 2023, according to police.

The Nelson Police Department told CBC News that Newton was last seen at the Walmart in Nelson, B.C., where Moore says he was living on the streets. Nelson, located on the shores of Kootenay Lake, is about 164 kilometres southeast of Kelowna.

Moore says she hasn't spoken to her son since then.

It's her understanding that there were sightings of Newton last summer, although Nelson police say information they first publicized stating he was seen downtown in August has since been proven incorrect. 

Newton would often visit support services in Nelson and call his mother from those locations, but Moore says she can't confirm if he was seen by outreach workers last summer because of privacy laws protecting Newton's personal information.

She's calling for systemic change to privacy guidelines and the way unhoused individuals are cared for so other families don't go through the same thing. 

In B.C., in the vast majority of cases, a person has to provide verbal or written consent for family members to be allowed to access personal information on them, such as health-care or support service records.

"Ensuring personal health information is kept confidential is a top priority for government, as well as for healthcare providers who care for patients," the Ministry of Health told CBC News in a statement. 

One exception is in emergency situations.

According to the ministry, if a person is in crisis and could pose a risk to themselves or someone else, information about them may be shared between health-care providers and family members. 

But Moore says she's hit nothing but road blocks from treatment centres, support agencies and the Ministry of Health when trying to find out more information about her son, where he's been, and his condition. 

"I believe if I would have been allowed to be part of his care that he wouldn't be missing today," the mother said.

"In a missing person's case like Christopher's, there needs to be something that just allows all barriers for privacy to just collapse so that we can get the information that we need. I call a psychiatric ward and they're like, 'Well, sorry, we can't give you any information'…. It cuts us, family and parents, out of their care." 

Aislin Jackson, a policy staff lawyer with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, says there is some flexibility within B.C.'s laws when it comes to information being accessed or released, but the main mechanism is to protect people's privacy and their right to autonomy. 

"The fundamental idea is putting people in control of their own information, and for that reason, we don't really have access rights to the the information of other people, even if those people are our relations, because it's all about personal autonomy over this information."

Jackson says not everyone has a positive relationship with their parents or spouse, for example, which is why the laws are written the way they are. 

In B.C., adults can agree to pass decision-making power off to another person on things like financial affairs and health care if they believe they will become incapable of doing so independently in the future. But Moore says she didn't know such representation agreements were an options until after Newton went missing.

Calling for housing-first approach

Moore says her son suffers from schizophrenia, which led him to living on the streets and eventually turning to drugs to try to manage the symptoms. 

CBC News was unable to confirm Newton's diagnosis because of privacy laws, but Moore says he was formally diagnosed by a psychiatrist through the court system in his 20s.

She says symptoms began when he was 23 and have only gotten worse since. Newton has been in and out of jail for things like joyriding — taking a motor vehicle without consent and driving it. 

Moore blames the medical and judicial systems, calling them a "vicious cycle."

"Mental illness isn't a crime, addiction is not a moral failing, and poverty isn't a choice," she said. 

"There needs to be a housing-first approach. The solution isn't displacing them. I think the wraparound services need to be there and they need to be individualized for each person." 

Missing person investigation

Nelson police first reported Newton missing on Jan. 4, 2025, after Moore filed a missing person report. The investigation into his whereabouts is ongoing. 

In an email to CBC News, the Nelson Police Department said they have followed up on a number of leads. They're asking anyone with information to contact the local detachment. 

Newton is five feet 10 inches and 159 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes and a skateboard tattoo on his left shoulder.