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Post-9/11 security measures will be thrust squarely in the sights of the Supreme Court of Canada today by a small Hutterite community seeking an exemption from the use of mandatory photographs on driver's licences.

In a clash of Old World religion and New World realities, the 252 Hutterites claim that adhering to the post-9/11 security provision would force them to violate a biblical commandment forbidding idolatry.

If none of their members can drive to nearby cities for jobs or in medical emergencies, their rural settlement and way of life will be destroyed, the Hutterites argue.

However, they have run headlong into security-conscious provincial and federal officials, who express dire concerns about terrorists stealing the identities of the Hutterites and placing the entire country in danger.

In a brief to the Supreme Court, federal lawyers paint a dire picture of terrorists creating fake driver's licences in order to gain access to airplanes or port facilities.

“The consequences could be grave,” the federal brief warned. It also cautioned the court against opening the floodgates to anyone who cares to claim a similar religious belief. By making freedom of religion “absolute,” the federal brief said, the court would jeopardize the security of other documents such as passports and citizenship certificates.

The federal brief also criticized the Alberta Court of Appeal for a 2-1 ruling in favour of the Hutterites, in which the court demanded proof that the Alberta Legislature had debated the photo requirement. Setting a constitutional precondition for open legislative debate “is unprecedented in the jurisprudence and inconsistent with our constitutional traditions,” the brief said.

However, an intervenor in the case, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, maintains that “tearing apart the fabric of a religious community and ending their communal way of life exacts too high a price for the benefit of including 252 Hutterites in Alberta's data base.”

“The reason the province says they want the photographs is that they have new facial recognition technology, and want to use it in order to prevent terrorism and identity theft,” CCLA spokesperson Noa Mendelsohn-Aviv said.

“In other words, this is an identity-card regime which has nothing to do with traffic safety, but which the province created through a traffic safety regulation, and without any public consultation,” he said.

The CCLA brief said that Alberta managed to accommodate the Hutterites prior to 2003 by offering special licences, and an enhanced threat of terrorism is no reason to stop.

“The evidence is that in 30 years of religious accommodation, there is not a single incident of Hutterites abusing their non-photo driver's licence as an identity document or otherwise,” the brief said. “The historical record also convincingly refutes any concern about fraudsters claiming to be Hutterites to claim the religious exemption.”

A Christian sect that began about 500 years ago, the Hutterites have moved often in order to escape government oppression. Their brief notes that several provinces allow non-photo driver's licences, and that Alberta's reasons for denying them are rooted in “anecdotes and vague allusions to potential harm.”

“The appellant refers to the terrible events of Sept. 11, 2001, but fails to provide any explanation – let alone cogent evidence – of how having a photo driver's licence would have prevented the hijacking and crashing of airplanes by terrorists,” the Hutterites' brief said.