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

R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295, religious freedoms are subject to such limitationsas are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamentalrights and freedoms of others . . . .. . .. . . The values that underlie our political and philosophic traditions demand thatevery individual be free to hold and to manifest whatever beliefs and opinions his or herconscience dictates, provided . . . only that such manifestations do not injure his or herneighbours or their parallel rights to hold and manifest beliefs and opinions of theirown. [pp. 337 and 346][112] The issue in this case, therefore, is whether in balancing the benefits of the infringingmeasure against the harm to the right, the infringement is justified. With respect, unlike the ChiefJustice, in my view it is not.[113] The government of Alberta has imposed a mandatory photo requirement for a driver’slicence. The stated objective of the measure is to help reduce identity theft through the use of afacial recognition database. The province acknowledges that roadside safety and security are notat issue. Since the introduction of a photo requirement 29 years earlier, there had been, withoutincident, an exemption for those like the Hutterites whose religion prohibits them from beingphotographed.[114] The harm to the constitutional rights of the Hutterites, in the absence of an exemption,is dramatic. Their inability to drive affects them not only individually, but also severelycompromises the autonomous character of their religious community.[115] Unlike the severity of its impact on the Hutterites, the benefits to the province of