SUPREME COURT OF CANADA CITATION: Alberta v. Hutterian ...

[43] The chambers judge found that the universal photo requirement was also aimed atharmonization of international and interprovincial standards for photo identification. The evidencesupports the Province’s contention that other provinces and nations are moving towardharmonization, and that a feature of this harmonization is likely to be a universal photo requirementfor all licence holders. While the fact that other provinces have not yet moved to this requirementarguably undercuts the position that a universal photo requirement is necessary in Alberta now,governments are entitled to act in the present with a view to future developments. Accordingly,harmonization may be considered as a factor relevant to the Province’s goal of ensuring the integrityof the licensing system by reducing identity theft associated with the system.[44] The majority of the Court of Appeal suggested that the goal of the universal photorequirement should be confined to purposes related to traffic safety, since that was the subject of theauthorizing Act. However, government regulations may deal both with the primary goal of anenabling law and with collateral concerns resulting from measures adopted to achieve this goal. AsSlatter J.A. put it, “[i]t is the height of formality to suggest that the prevention of the misuse of adriver’s licence is not one of the purposes of the Traffic Safety Act. Provisions that attempt toprevent the misuse or abuse of an enactment are well within the objectives of the enactment” (para.90).[45] In this case, the government’s primary goal is traffic safety, as denoted by the title ofthe Act. To further this goal, the Act puts in place a system of licensing drivers. A collateral effectof the licensing system is that the driver’s licences issued under this system have becomegeneralized identification documents, with the attendant risk that they might be misused for identity