Posted by ClearSkies on March 19, 2006, at 14:53:39
I am a Canadian citizen living in the US. I have a particular aversion to dealing with government agencies. it doesn't matter which country's government. I've experienced trauma at the US border, at British Immigration, and the federal government center in Boston when I attempted to apply for citizenship. (I was escorted from their premises with an armed guard after it was determined that I didn't actually meet the application requirements. Who knew? Not me.)
So, this time I thought that I would renew my passport with plenty of time (expires in May) and it's not as simple as it used to be. Because I was born in Quebec, my birth certificate is not valid proof of citizenship. There's a 13-page guide I had to print on how to get that, and *then* I can apply for the new passport. I should have started this process last year.
I had no idea that Quebec wasn't really a part of Canada, did you? I mean, if I'd been born in Ottawa, I wouldn't have to go through this. I'd be able to send my birth certificate in with my application for passport renewal, no problem. But because I was born in a now special place, I can shell out more money and spend more time trying to prove that I'm a citizen of the country that my birth certificate claims I am. Can't I send them a picture of me in a snowdrift? Or standing on Mount Royal? Or my first grade class photograph, with me wearing my Liddle Kiddle doll pinned to my navy tunic??
It's bewildering. I want someone else to do all this for me. I want it to be simple. I don't mind getting the horrible passport photos made, paying top dollar for an image I have to live with for another 5 years, of me looking like a ghost or a ghoul or a gremlin. Nothing like those passport photos. You don't see them in any model portfolios, do you?
Canadian I was born, Canadian I remain. Even if it depletes an entire print cartridge on the printer and I have to stand and feed dimes to the photocopier at the library, and I have to ask my dentist to be my guarantor because he's known me long enough (OK, he's known the inside of my mouth long enough) to qualify as one.
As much of a pain in the patooty as this is, it is a badge of being Canadian. We have the best, most convoluted, expensive, well documented passport office in the world, I bet. Someone tell me we do, please!
ClearSkies
poster:ClearSkies
thread:622102
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060304/msgs/622102.html