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

of the limit very serious.[95] However, in many cases, the incidental effects of a law passed for the general good ona particular religious practice may be less serious. The limit may impose costs on the religiouspractitioner in terms of money, tradition or inconvenience. However, these costs may still leavethe adherent with a meaningful choice concerning the religious practice at issue. The Charterguarantees freedom of religion, but does not indemnify practitioners against all costs incident to thepractice of religion. Many religious practices entail costs which society reasonably expects theadherents to bear. The inability to access conditional benefits or privileges conferred by law maybe among such costs. A limit on the right that exacts a cost but nevertheless leaves the adherent witha meaningful choice about the religious practice at issue will be less serious than a limit thateffectively deprives the adherent of such choice.[96] This returns us to the task at hand — assessing the seriousness of the limit on religiouspractice imposed in this case by the regulation’s universal photo requirement for driver’s licences.This is not a case like Edwards Books or Multani where the incidental and unintended effect of thelaw is to deprive the adherent of a meaningful choice as to the religious practice. The impugnedregulation, in attempting to secure a social good for the whole of society — the regulation of driver’slicences in a way that minimizes fraud — imposes a cost on those who choose not to have theirphotos taken: the cost of not being able to drive on the highway. But on the evidence before us, thatcost does not rise to the level of depriving the Hutterian claimants of a meaningful choice as to theirreligious practice, or adversely impacting on other Charter values.