Canadian Government Bureaucracy

I have had a Canadian passport since the mid-50s. Generally, every five years I get my photo taken, arrange for the guarantor, fill up the form and line up with the other sheep to get the latest edition of the travel document. I believe originally I paid five or ten dollars. Today, if you want it sent by mail, it costs $85.00 However, should you wish to pick it up in person it costs $95.00. (As the late Jack E Leonard used to say: "I just tell 'em, I don't explain 'em".)

Off my wife and I went to the local Passport office. We were directed to a small room where you show your documentation and are assigned a number. We waited patiently, and when our turn arrived presented our documents. I was asked for my birth certificate and handed it over only to be told that since it was a Quebec certificate issued in 1984 it was not recognized. I would need one issued after January of 1994.

My 1999 passport had been issued on the strength of that birth certificate, as borne out by the expiring passport which I also produced. I was no less me that day than I was in 1999, and born in the same place and of the same parents as was the case in 1999. Thus I found it rather strange if not illogical that a valid birth certificate would cease to be a valid certificate because of its date of issue.

I asked to be advised of the statute or regulation that suddenly rendered me a non-person at which point I was issued with a number and told to ask for a supervisor.

Off we went to the next chamber, and waited for our numbers to be called (or rather flashed on a sign, to be more precise). Some forty minutes later the magic moment arrived. My wife, whose number was one ahead of mine, went off to her station and I to mine.

Again I asked basically the same questions and was told to take it up with the government of Quebec. Since I was applying for a Canadian passport, and so far as I was aware Quebec did not have the power to issue passports, that line of reasoning was beyond me. In response to my query about the statute or regulation that was applicable I was told to submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act. When I pointed out how ludicrous that was, I was informed, soto voce, that it was not a statute or regulation, but rather a departmental "policy decision".

So there I was, on the far side of sixty, and my government will not acknowledge that I was born in the manner and to the parents that they have always acknowledged in the past. Are they saying that my nine previous passports, which they issued, were based on a lie? Or are they saying that while I may have existed in the past, my existence is now in question because of a "policy decision" that was made pursuant to something that I must determine by applying under the Freedom of Information Act?

The real problem is even if I apply, how can they respond to someone who apparently does not exist because his birth certificate was issued in the wrong year?

Since I am quoting comedians today, it was Red Buttons who used to say: "Strange things are happening."