Stupid Government Nonsense

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Here’ s the situation:
We recently got a notice from the Provincial Government (Ontario, Canada) that our kids’ health cards need to be replaced. In order to do that, we must provide copies of our kids’ birth certificates.

Unfortunately, we lost the original birth certificates and must get them replaced. I was pleased when I saw that the form was only 1 1/2 pages long, but that feeling didn’t last long when I noticed that we had to obtain the signature of a “guarantor” stating that the information on the form is correct “to the best of the guarantor’s knowledge”.

Who qualifies as a guarantor, you ask? Well according to the Ministry, the Guarantor MUST:

  • be a Canadian Citizen
  • have known us for at least two years
  • have known us well enough to be confident that the statements are true
  • be included in one of the following groups:
    • dentist, doctor, nurse, midwife, pharmacist, etc
    • judge, magistrate, police officer
    • lawyer
    • mayor
    • member of parliament
    • religious minister
    • notary public
    • school principal
    • school teacher
    • professional accountant
    • senior college administrator
    • signing officer of a bank
    • veterinarian

After getting the form filled out, a signed off I have to take it to the – get this – Provincial Land Registry Office in my city.

Here are my problems:

  1. Why doesn’t some bright light at the Ministry of Health look in the birth records database to confirm the birth info? It’d be a whole lot more reliable than looking at an easily forged piece of paper.

  2. The birth info on the birth certificate includes the names and birth dates of the parents. Why can’t they look at that and compare it to the info and my smiling mug shot on my spiffy-new-“forge-proof”-provincially-issued driver’s licence and see that it’s really me who wants a copy of my kids’ birth certificates?

  3. Why is getting the signature, name, and phone number of someone who qualifies as a guarantor better than what I suggest in #2 above? (After all how flaky can you get with the “to the best of my knowledge” certification the guarantor has to make?)

  4. The only person I know who would qualify under this list and lives within a five hour drive is my Pastor – and he is on vacation. Since my kids just started school last year we haven’t even known a teacher for two years. Sorry folks I just don’t know any mayors of parliamentarians that well! Sheeesh!!

  5. Why do we go to the Land Registry Office to get birth certificates? I looked in the phone book government listings for 20 minutes before I got smart and Googled for “Replacement Ontario Birth Certificate”. Land Registry Office – now why didn’t I think of that!?!?!?! :smack: (That ought to get kputt pretty miffed!)

  6. I know slightly several civil servants and they all seem to be reasonably intelligent people. How is it that when you get so many of them together you get this kind of government nonsense? Do they just not care? How can they possibly stand to work for a place that has so much absurdity around it?
    OK this is a bit of a rant, but I’m in the mood for commiserating. I suspect this is pretty small potatoes compared to other government run arounds…

2

The underwhelming response will teach me a lesson about writing such a loooonnnng OP!!

3

Veterinarian? I’d love to hear the reasoning on that one.

4

This looks like the same list of guarantors as is needed to get a Canadian passport. However, in the case of the passport, there is an alternate procedure.

General Information from the Ministry of Comsumer and Business Services. Well, heck! It doesn’t look like there’s an alternate procedure for if you have no guarantor!

Maybe Land Registry is simply the most common service the Ministry provides?

5

How about this one:

My Canadian friends live in Brazil and had two kids there. The kids were about 6 and 4 and had lived there all their lives.

Eventually the Canadian government got annoyed that they weren’t paying taxes and tracked them down to the mountainside they live on.

They filled out all the silly forms and jumped through the hoops - all the while crying “We don’t make any money ! We’re Third World farmers!” - until finally the government was satisfied.

So, they started getting child tax benefit refunds ! Har, har, har !

stupid canadian government. I just find this story cheers me up during situations like yours.

6

Strangely complicated procedure. I don’t know about other states, but in Colorado, I can get a birth certificate on-line by entering very little information. No certifications required.

Bob

7

Cowgirl, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. Words fail me. (note: this doesn’t happen often)

8

At least until five years ago, I could get copies of my, my spouse’s and my step-son’s BC just for the asking, in the town hall where the birth was registered. (I don’t know if it has changed.)

9

Protection of your individual privacy. A civil servant can’t just phone up Vital Stats and say, “Pull Mukluk’s file. Oh, and while you’re at it, pull his wife’s files, his kids’ files, and the files of that no-good brother-in-law* of his as well - there must be something good for a giggle in there somewhere.”

Most provincial privacy laws dictate that a civil servant must have a specific, authorised reason to pull personal information that the Government has on record about a citizen. One of those reasons is that the citizen (or the citizen’s parents, when the citizen is a minor), has requested the information. That request usually has to be in writing, both to protect the civil servant from suspicion of wrong-doing, and to provide evidence that the person making the request has the right to do so.

This is also to protect you and everyone else from “identity theft,” which is an increasingly common and sophisticated type of fraud. One way to start scamming is to have fake i.d. A better way to start scamming is to have geniuine government i.d., issued in a fake name. Best of all is to have genuine government i.d., in a real person’s name.

It used to be that security about birth certificates was so lax that anyone who knew the right name could go in and ask for a new copy, pay the $5 fee and walk out with genuine gov’t i.d., just like j66 mentions.

Once they had the birth certificate, they could open up bank accounts, get credit cards, and start going to town - paying with bum checks, buying expensive goods on credit and selling them, and so on. And guess who gets in trouble? the person whose birth certificate or other i.d. the scammer’s got. That person’s credit rating is in the toilet, the cops may be investigating him/her on suspicion of fraud, the people the scammer has ripped off are suing him/her for the debts, etc.

[sidebar]have you checked your personal credit rating recently? for about $25 you can get one from the credit rating agencies that the banks use. It’s recommended that you check it every year or so, to make sure no-one’s somehow using your name and destroying your credit…[/sidebar]

So that’s two very good reasons why civil servants aren’t permitted to fire up the ol’database. Both reasons are for your own protection.

  • hyperbole, inserted for humourous effect. I’m sure your brother-in-law is a great guy. Honest. :wink:
10

Again, this is a measure to protect you from identity theft.

The Gov’t has a separate application process for each type of i.d., as one way to reduce the chance of valid i.d. being issued in a fake name. Each time you want to get i.d., you have to prove you’re who you say you are. Otherwise, all it would take is to be successful once, with one piece of fake i.d., and then use it to get other types of real i.d. just by relying on the fake one.

This approach is especially important with i.d. like birth certificates and passports, since they are the some of the most important pieces of i.d. you can have. That’s why you can’t renew a Canadian passport - you have to apply for a new one when the old one expires, and prove you’re who you say you are all over again. (And, with global security issues, concern about valid i.d. has a security issue as well.)

11

All of the people on this list have either professional or public responsibilities. If they make a false statement on a form like this, knowing that it’s being used to obtain i.d., they could be in serious trouble with their professional regulatory body, their employer, or their electorate. That helps to ensure that their identification of you is valid. [I happen to be a member of one of the professions on the list. Trust me, if you came to me and asked me to vouch that you’re who you say you are, I’d make damn sure I’m completely satisfied you meet the requirements. The last thing I need is to be hauled in front of a professional discipline board.]

It’s also to reduce the ability of a scammer who is successful in getting one piece of fake i.d. from relying solely on that fake piece to get a real i.d., as explained in aswer to # 2.

12

Now this, I don’t get. The federal applications I’m familiar with (passports and gun registry) have default provisions for someone in your situation, who doesn’t know anyone on the list. I believe they can go before a notary public or a j.p. and make a statutory declaration that they are who they say they are and don’t know anyone who qualifies as a refererence.

It seems odd that the Ontario government wouldn’t have a “default” like that. It might be worth phoning your M.P.P. to squawk. He/she might be able to help. (And even if not, it’s got the side benefit that you’ll get to know your M.P.P. for the next time you need to get a reference. :smiley: )

13

My guess would be it’s an attempt to consolidate all government services all in one building, to try to reduce the cost to the taxpayer (that would be you! :D) Because sales of land are such a routine and economically important transaction, the Government has lots of Land Titles offices all over the province, so it makes sense to add on other “registry” type functions in the LTO, rather than having each government agency buy/rent space in separate buildings, and to provide staffers just for birth certificates - odds are there’s not nearly the same demand for birth certificates as there is for land transactions.

To put it another way, how would you feel if every time you saw a Land Titles building, you also saw a separate Vital Stats building? As a taxpayer, wouldn’t you grumble about “bloody duplication of services - how much is that costing us? And why have two sets of lazy civil servants sitting around when they don’t have enough to keep them busy already? etc., etc.”

I appreciate that it’s not intuitively obvious that you go to Land Titles for birth certificates. It’s in response to that sort of concern that federal, provincial and municipal governments are increasingly collaborating on the blue pages in the phone book, to have all government offices listed by the service they provide, rather than by the department or government they belong to. So for example, there would be an entry for “Birth Certificates”, rather than entries for “Ontario Land Titles” or “Ontario Vital Stats.”

If that’s not the case in Ontario, maybe more squawking to your M.P.P. would be in order. (And it would help him/her remember you when you need that passport reference :stuck_out_tongue: )

14

Please take a look at my answers to the other questions and let me know if you’re still of the same mind.

:cool:

15

Words fail me too, but for a different reason. Canada does not tax non-residents (even citizens), and sure has hell would not track anyone down to a Brazilian mountainside. Someone’s been spooning the bullshit in liberal doses, there.