So much time for a little piece of paper..

Liam was born at the end of September and about a week after his birth, I went online to the Newborn Registration Service and filled out the birth registration online. At the same time, I applied online for a birth certificate and Social Insurance Number. It was quick and easy – no complaints there. I printed off the form like they said and mailed it, along with a cheque for $33 to the city as I was instructed. At the same time, the same information was sent electronically to the provincial and federal governments for the birth certificate and SIN respectively. (Note also that my CC was charged immediately for the birth certificate) Then I started the waiting game…the website said it could take up to 4 months for the registration to be completed. Wow. Seems like a long time but given the fact that information needs to be verified and the like, not outrageous I guess.

Time passed, we all grew older, and no word from anybody about the registration or the birth certificate. Just before Christmas, I noticed that the city had finally cashed my cheque which was included with the birth registration form. Still no word… In early January (last week actually) I decided to call the city to see what was going on. I was informed that they had completed the registration on Dec 15th and was provided with a 4 digit registration number. Fantastic! It only took around 10 weeks, instead of the published 16, so I was happy.

Now all that was left to do was call up the Office of the Registrar General and see if they had started on the birth certificate. Afterall, their website says they guarantee you will have the birth certificate within 15 days if the birth is registered. If they can do it that quickly when the birth is already registered, they should be able to do it just as quick after the registration is complete right? Well anyways, I called them up and waited on the phone for a half hour only to be told that they haven’t received anything from the city yet. Huh?! They city told me they completed the registration on the 15th of December.

A little more time passed and I call the Office of the Registrar General back to see if anything had changed. This time I waited on the phone for 75 minutes after which time I’m told that they can see the registration is complete with the city but that they can’t proceed until the birth is registered with the province. I asked how long that would take and was told it would take 8-10 weeks. WTF?! 10 weeks to register with the city and another 10 weeks to register with the province?! What the hell did the city do during this registration process? Presumably they verified the information I provided (given that it took them 10 weeks) and then provided that SAME information to the province. Why would it take an ADDITIONAL 10 weeks for the province to register the birth – they shouldn’t have to do ANYTHING! This should be automatic once the registration with the city is complete – just copy the informatoin from the city’s database to the province’s. And in fact that shouldn’t even be necessary since I submitted everything online and the EXACT same information was used to register the birth with the city. It should just be a matter of a clicking a checkbox to say, “Yep – the city checked all this out and it’s valid.”

Instead, despite the age we live in of electronic communication, the city sends a letter to the provice. The province then does whatever it is that they need to do and then sends a letter to the office of the Registrar General. The Registrar General eventually gets around to printing out a birth certificate and sends it to us. At least that is what I assume happens given that it takes so FRICKIN’ long. I don’t even want to ask about the SIN I applied for at this point.

To summarize, I’m not necessarily complaining about the process – it was quick and easy to get it started – but how long it takes the process to complete. Why do I care? Well we can’t leave the country with Liam until we have at least a birth certificate for him. I’ve been told that we can request a travel letter from the city (which will cost $$) which can then be used to get a temporary passport (more $$) which will expire in something like 30 days, after which we will need to spend more $$ getting a new passport (assuming the birth certificate shows up) which is only good for 2 or 3 years. That is a lot of extra $$ due to an unnecessarily long process.

On the bright side, I believe I’ve heard talks (perhaps on the news) of streamlining the process such that the application is done from the hospital (electronically I believe) immediately after the birth. Perhaps by the time we have our next child this will be in place.