By Mark Johnson, Contributor
Opinion
“We must vigilantly stand on guard within our own borders for human rights and fundamental freedoms, which are our proud heritage … We cannot take for granted the continuance and maintenance of those rights and freedoms.”
These are not the words of some left-wing activist. They were spoken by Progressive Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker. Long before Pierre Trudeau enshrined our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Diefenbaker was Canada’s champion of equality, passing the federal Bill of Rights in 1960.
With Diefenbaker’s words and legacy as a backstop, we conservatives must now be brave enough to oppose what one conservative government is planning — because while governments expect pushback from their standard political opponents, they don’t always expect it from supporters.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith recently announced her government’s plan to add a marker to driver’s licences indicating whether the holder is a Canadian citizen. Non-citizens would then be identifiable by the lack of such a marker. Smith says this would improve Albertans’ access to government programs and help maintain electoral integrity. Yet even accepting this justification at face value, conservatives still need to speak out against the premier’s harmful and troublesome plan.
It’s doubtful that any of Canada’s great federal or provincial conservative leaders — Diefenbaker, Sir John A. Macdonald, Peter Lougheed, Bill Davis, Brian Mulroney — would’ve supported this move. Quite the opposite: it likely never would’ve survived an initial discussion with any of them.
In addition to passing the Bill of Rights, conservatives in Canada have led many advances on equality. It was a conservative government that secured for women and Indigenous citizens the right to vote. Our first female cabinet minister, Black cabinet minister, Inuit cabinet minister, Chinese Canadian MP, Italian Canadian MP and female prime minister were all conservatives.
Yet conservative parties in this country are still badly compromised in some minority communities, partly because of the “barbaric cultural practices snitch line” that the federal Conservatives proposed during the 2015 election campaign. It was an offensive idea, one that a responsible adult should’ve killed before it saw the light of day. Similarly, Smith’s plan for Alberta amounts to political self-harm, as well as being an insult to minority populations — and it could cost conservatives across Canada.
Still, examining this policy through the lens of electoral politics misses the important point of principle that should galvanize conservatives to stand against it. Simply put: no government should issue an identity card millions of people need and use every day so it can distinguish our friends and neighbours on the basis of private information that tends to overlap with personal characteristics such as ethnicity. To do so would be not only antithetical to our rights and freedoms but also to core moral principles, including equality and non-discrimination.
What’s more, Smith’s plan is clearly premised on the notion that, for some reason, non-citizens should be easily identifiable to authorities instead of being treated as they are: upstanding members of Canadian society engaged in the long and quiet struggle for a better life — just like the rest of us. More troublingly, differentiated licences might suggest that treating non-citizens differently is justified, when it truly is not.
And the premier’s timing couldn’t be worse: recent events have many minorities in Canada feeling increasingly uneasy, if not outright threatened.
Consider U.S. President Donald Trump’s harsh measures on immigration and deportation, topics that are undergoing a calmer debate in Canada but remain vulnerable to anti-immigrant rhetoric. Or consider Quebec’s Bill 21, which targets religious minorities, or all the ill-founded claims of Chinese interference in Canadian elections, which sometimes crossed the line into racial intolerance. Then there are the white-hot passions over the war in Gaza that pit minority populations against each other.
In times like these, our leaders must tread carefully. Smith is doing just the opposite.
If voter fraud exists, or if arranging public services for non-citizens creates administrative burdens, there are undoubtedly better ways to mitigate these issues — ways that wouldn’t threaten the social cohesion of our multicultural society.
All in all, Smith’s plan will only stigmatize and hurt our friends, neighbours and colleagues. The courts are likely to invalidate it as unconstitutional, as they should. But it would be better if Alberta changed course because we conservatives, who value limited government and individual rights, and whose leadership on equality is our proud heritage, decided to speak out.