A violent confrontation at a Whitehorse nightspot, sparked by a suspected fake Yukon driver's licence, has renewed the Liberals' calls that the outdated ID get a makeover.

According to e-mail correspondence between a liquor inspector and a Department of Highways official, on May 16, a patron was refused entry to a club when the Yukon licence he produced as proof-of-age was considered bogus. Liberal highways critic Don Inverarity distributed the e-mail.

After seizing the document, the doorman twice repelled an attack from the would-be patron, who was angry at losing his identification.

When the RCMP arrived on the scene, they too suspected the licence was a fake, but discovered its legitimacy after calling it into headquarters.

"I have been urging the government to get on with upgrading our licences for some time and the response has been silence," said Inverarity.

To prove his point, last summer, Inverarity solicited "horror stories you have experienced using your Yukon driver's licence" via advertisements in the local newspapers.

For the effort, Inverarity received scores of complaints - everything from people denied entry to casinos and pubs to one individual forced to return to a graduated driver's licence system in Alberta because officials there did not recognize his Yukon licence.

"And he lost work because of it," claimed Inverarity.

While unable to comment on the May 16 incident, Whitehorse RCMP Sgt. Mark Groves said police commonly deal with situations where it's believed somebody has forged or altered a Yukon driver's licence.

"We had a call for service today where we investigated a forged licence used to obtain alcohol," said Groves. "It does happen; it has happened in the past."

Groves added that the police have been talking with the territorial government about ways to make the identification more difficult to tamper with, "in regards to possibly changing the licence."

The Star's calls to the Department of Highways and Public Works to determine if and when Yukoners could expect new driver's licences were not returned as of press time earlier this afternoon.

When Inverarity raised this issue last summer, Premier Dennis Fentie derided the critic's collection of "horror stories" as a cheap publicity stunt.

"We're waiting on a pilot project between B.C. and Washington State on extended driver's licences (valid for declaring citizenship) and the work is being done," Fentie said last August.

He hinted new licences could be the enhanced variety, a substitute for passports now required for land crossings into the United States from Canada.

"We're not going to redesign our driver's licence today if it won't satisfy cross-border travel regulations," the premier said.

Three years ago, the Northwest Territories introduced new driver's licences, replacing the laminated photograph version similar to the Yukon's current licence.

Al Kaylo, director of road licensing and registrar of motor vehicles for the N.W.T., said implementing the new licence cost $2.4 million but is a marked improvement.

"Before, it was just a laminated piece of paper and you could manipulate it. Now, it's state-of-the-art, offers identity protection measures and is virtually impossible to counterfeit," said Kaylo.

"We were one of the early (territories or provinces) to do this but we deal a lot with Nunavut and the Yukon, so it's too bad the jurisdictions couldn't have gotten in on this because it would've saved costs."

Kaylo added the N.W.T. considered adding the enhanced licence feature but due to costs and the fact the territory does not share a border with the United States, the idea was scrapped.