Seven Concerns about Premier Smith’s New Citizenship Markers

The Alberta government says it will add mandatory citizenship markers to driver’s licences and provincial ID cards, with rollout targeted for late 2026.

Officials also tout a new Alberta Wallet (a mobile ID app) and a plastic card that bundles the health card with the driver’s licence as early as next year.

Premier Danielle Smith touts these moves as means of preserving “election integrity” and “streamlining services.” Those justifications are not borne out by evidence, however, leading critics to conclude that there is an ulterior motive. There are immediate and long-term risks associated with the new policy, as well. Albertans deserve straight answers about the following seven major concerns before we re-engineer everyday identity documents.

1. ELECTIONS

If this is about election integrity, will a driver’s licence (with the new marker) become the exclusive proof of identity/citizenship at provincial polls?

Will other documents (passport, status card, two-piece ID) still be accepted under current Elections Alberta rules? If nothing changes, say so clearly. And explain why any reform is required, if that's the case. (This needed debate is one I’ve contributed to in the past. See sidebar.)

Presumably it will take a decade to phase out existing licences, which have 10-year expiry periods. So this policy has a long phase-in. Why take so long to phase in a change if election integrity is really at stake?

Even if the policy goes ahead in 2026 — which is a big “if” — there will still be no way to distinguish a citizen from a non-citizen until 2036 (when old licences are fully phased out).

A new voter ID card makes more sense from that perspective. (I know, I know: don't give them any ideas.)

2. SERVICES

The premier is touting the new card as providing Albertans, for the first time, with proof of citizenship and photo ID in the same document. Leaving aside that we already have passports for that purpose, there are deeper concerns about ulterior motives.

If the government’s goal is to reduce the number of cards we carry, we need to know which provincial services currently require proof of citizenship, which will in the future, and how a citizenship marker on a licence would actually reduce paperwork.

I stand to be corrected, but outside of civic rights (voting in elections, signing petitions, serving on juries), provincial programs overwhelmingly rely on residency and immigration status, not citizenship. Health coverage, income supports, student aid, seniors’ benefits, licensing and most regulatory programs currently serve many non-citizen residents.

So, unless this marker is designed for gatekeeping services in the future, it's unclear how the move is about “streamlining access to services and reducing the need to carry multiple documents,” as the government has suggested.

Given the focus of the Alberta Next panel, we are right to question whether this citizenship marker is a pretext to deny certain non-citizens access to such provincial services.

(Those funded by federal transfers have mobility restrictions preventing such discrimination. So we can anticipate more federal-provincial disputes.)

3. PRIVACY

Alberta just overhauled its access-to-information and public sector privacy laws. Before printing citizenship — and potentially health numbers — on licences, the government needs to publish its privacy impact assessments, specify retention and data-minimization rules, and state who can see or record that data (police, registry agents, employers, banks, landlords).

And if health numbers do move onto licences, Alberta Health must explain Health Information Act compliance and whether police, liquor stores, employers, political parties or other entities that routinely request or scan licences would ever be permitted to record or retain the number as part of routine checks. (The same goes for citizenship.)

I’m hearing from experts that the province lacks the authority to include citizenship information on its driver’s licence. That information would be federal data, and even if Alberta has access to it, this new application would not be within its intended purposes for use.

Why bundle health, voting and driving data at all? If “streamlining” is the answer, prove that it’s worth the additional privacy risk. The United Conservative Party’s libertarian base is already raising these questions on social media.

(Side note: Libertarian separatists are also upset about having to put another Canadian symbol on their ID.)

4. RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

Citizenship is not a protected ground in the Alberta Human Rights Act. If government stamps citizenship onto the most commonly presented piece of ID, what stops private sector misuse — for example, landlords or employers screening out non-citizens at the door?

The province should either amend the Human Rights Act to protect non-citizens from discrimination or publish binding guidance prohibiting non-governmental uses of the marker for gatekeeping and outline penalties for violators.

It should also set out exemptions and accommodations for Indigenous people, seniors, unhoused Albertans, refugees, stateless persons and anyone with complex documentation histories.

5. COST AND CAPACITY

Reorienting identity documents at this scale isn’t free. Albertans are entitled to a line-by-line costing: IT changes, card redesign and production, registry training, outreach and re-carding.

Who pays: taxpayers or motorists / residents through higher fees?

The administrative burden of setting up and updating this new database is also immense. How many additional staff (full-time equivalent) will be hired at Service Alberta and Vital Statistics, and what service standards will they guarantee (processing times, error correction, escalation)?

As many Albertans come from away, the burdens on vital statistics agencies in other provinces must also be factored in. Searching down long-form birth certificates takes time and resources. Just ask anyone who's misplaced a birth certificate or vaccine records.

6. ID PITFALLS

And anyone who's lost ID knows how difficult it is to get it reissued without ID. Victims of fire, floods and domestic violence know this all too well. So do caregivers to seniors and social workers supporting houseless folks. This new policy makes a bad situation worse.

Obtaining a birth certificate in Alberta requires photo ID, such as a driver’s licence or passport. Under this new law, obtaining a driver's licence will require a passport or driver's licence. And getting a passport requires a driver's licence or birth certificate. This circularity might be amusing if fundamental freedoms, like the right to vote, weren’t at stake.

7. OTHER JURISDICTIONS

Finally, precedent and recognition. Other provinces have contemplated, tried and abandoned “enhanced” licences that embedded citizenship-related features, citing cost and limited utility.

Alberta should explain why this time will be different, and whether a provincial driver’s licence marked for citizenship would be recognized outside Alberta for any purpose at all. Otherwise, we risk adding a badge that means little beyond our borders while creating new risks at home.

If the United States agrees to recognize the Alberta licence as a citizenship document, we are right to ask what sort of privacy protections exist to prevent the U.S. government from misusing it.

The federal government and other provinces often require two pieces of government-issued ID for their own programs and services. Albertans may have to dig deeper into their records to come up with another one, now that licences and health cards are combined.

Beyond nitpicking

None of these questions is trivial. They go to the core of what problem this policy actually solves.

If the province can quantify real benefits (faster service delivery, fewer documents, demonstrable improvements to election administration) and show that safeguards, costs and timelines are credible, Albertans may be persuaded.

But until those answers are released, this plan looks less like streamlining and more like risk stacking: more data on more cards shown to more people, with unclear guardrails and unfunded administrative burdens.

All this to say, the citizenship marker project will likely be scuttled on the shores of logic, logistics or law.

It shows, once again, how a premier-knows-best populist approach to policy-making ignores expert and stakeholder input at its peril. Unless this is all just performative, anyhow.

[Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article appeared on the author’s Substack, Decoding Politics.]