This is really the most important thing for me. I don’t want to be obligated by law to use some identity or attestation service tied to big tech. I might be ok with my bank handling it because they already require ultimate trust, but not if they simply defer to big tech or implement infrastructure on foreign ccTLDs (id.me, verified.me, etc.).

I’m Canadian and watching our government sell our souls to American tech companies is beyond scary.

Yes, Canadian here also and I feel the same. I'm pretty heavily Googled these days (gmail, gphotos, Pixel 10) and I work for a US tech company, so maybe I'm kidding myself that it matters much for me personally, but I'd be pretty sad if I ever found myself unable to access any level of government service because I didn't have a Google or Apple smartphone that I could point at a QR code on the screen.