Author: John Sikkema

John Sikkema serves as ARPA’s in-house legal counsel. His litigation work focuses on constitutional and human rights issues. John has written extensively about these issues for both popular and scholarly publications. John also provides legal research and advice for ARPA’s board and staff, analyzes federal and provincial public policy issues, and contributes to ARPA’s publications. John returns to ARPA after two years in private legal practice with The Acacia Group, a Christian firm in Ottawa.
John has acted as counsel in cases before numerous courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court, and several provincial appellate courts. John acted as co-counsel for ARPA in a precedent-setting Charter case that struck portions of the Ontario Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act that shielded abortion-related data in the government possession from public view.
John earned an Honours BA in Political Science from Brock in 2011, a JD from Queen’s University in 2014, and an LLM from Emory University in 2019, where he was awarded the Gertie and John Witte Prize in Law and Religion “for outstanding work in law and Christianity.” John articled with a mid-sized law firm in Toronto and was called to the Ontario bar in 2015.