Government Bureaucracy: Now Available In Canadian
When I think inept government, I think America; probably because I’m American. I take solace then, in this letter to the Canadian Ministry about the ordeal of renewing one’s passport.
Dear Mr. Minister,
I’m in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this.
How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and knows
that I bought a t.v. cable from them back in 1997, and yet, the Federal
Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand?
My birth date you have on my social insurance card, and it is on all the
income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health
insurance card, my driver’s license, on the last eight goddamn passports
I’ve had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out
before being allowed off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those
insufferable census forms that are done at election times.Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother’s name is
Maryanne, my father’s name is Robert and I’d be absolutely astounded if that
ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!!SHIT!
I apologize, Mr. Minister. I’m really pissed off this morning. Between you
an’ me, I’ve had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my
house, then you ask me for my fuckin’ address. What is going on? You have a
gang of Neanderthals assholes workin’ there!Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don’t want to dig up
Yasser Arafat, for shit sakes. I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy
beach.And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan
on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do
something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I’d sure as hell not
want to tell anyone!Well, I have to go now, ’cause I have to go to the other end of the city and
get another fuckin’ copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of $60!!!Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to
assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day??Nooooo, that’d be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You’d rather have us
running all over the fuckin’ place like chickens with our heads cut off,
then find some asshole to confirm that it’s really me on the goddamn picture
- you know, the one where we’re not allowed to smile?! (fuckin’
morons)Hey, you know why we can’t smile? We’re totally pissed off!
Signed – An Irate fucking Canadian Citizen.
P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to
confirm that it’s me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776
when one of my forefathers took up arms against the Americans. I have served
in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances
up the yingyang.I was aide de camp to the lieutenant governor of our province for ten years
and I have been doing volunteer work for the RCMP for about five years.However, I have to get someone ‘important’ to verify who I am – you know,
someone like my doctor WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN COMMUNIST fucking CHINA !!!
Via: Jenn W
Haha @ communist fucking china
First? Frist? FIST?
Sure, I’ll show you my fist. It’ll meet your face.
i wanna meet your fist, just not on my face…
Ooh.. hit me up +61429 337 094 xx Jess
im calling rule 29.
rules of the internet
“In the internet all girls are men and all kids are FBI agents”
be careful.
I’ve read this exact letter before but it was from an Australian, funny first time, but now realize that it’s not real, or some fruit from Canada stole the idea.
If you read this “exact” letter, but from Australia, then it should be pretty obvious that it’s fake. The first white settlers arrived in Australia in 1788, 12 years after the date that the author claims his forefathers arrived in the country. Also Australia has yet to take up arms against the Americans.
But why would an Australian need a passport “to go and park my ass on a sandy
beach.” ??
Plus, Australian’s don’t have “social insurance card(s)”, or Radio Shack or the RCMP (obviously) & we didn’t come to this country because our forefathers “took up arms against the Americans.”… we were sent here mostly as punishment for various crimes* (& what a punishment! Sunshine, beaches, great healthcare… I don’t think we’ve learned our lessons yet, we should totally be kept here for much, MUCH longer!). How can it be the “exact” same letter when nothing about it is the same?
*(Yes, some were also ship crewmembers/guards who came over to keep an eye on the convicts… & also the gold rush people, but the vast majority were convicts).
“Also Australia has yet to take up arms against the Americans.”
It’s not off the cards, though, right? I mean, it’s a possibility for the future? Don’t shoot me down, man, I got money ridin’ on this.
Are you really surprised a Canadian would write this? Canadians have no lives. Their government sucks, and they got the part of North America that the new neighbors didn’t snatch away. And their Canadian which means they have NO LIVES!
you must be american. you have to be.
This thing has been circulating in emails as a joke for years… nothing new here
I like pissed off people.
Ha Ha me 2 i think he is right though i mean you get a letter where they ask for your address? wtf?!
Wow… this guy better keep away from an American DMV office… he might explode…
And I totally agree, ADZ–
Pissed off people are fun as hell!
So true!!! LOL!!!
first!
He DOES make VERY good points…
Im applying for british citizenship and i know just how they feel.
Yeah, some of what ‘An Irate fucking Canadian Citizen’ was ranting about is legitimate (unless he wants foreign crop diseases spreading though Canadian farms), but based on MY experiences with ‘la Gouvernment du Canada’, I’m willing to wager he completed a passport application, sent it off, and then got a reply back asking for MORE INFO that he’s talking about above.
I think you mean le gouvernement du Canada, non? But I totally agree with you — it doesn’t matter how careful you are with your passport application, they almost always write back demanding more information.
And don’t even get me started on the five-year expiries, and the need for children to have their own (previously they could be added to a parent’s passport).
Woah. You mean there was a time when you Canucks could actually use one passport for both parent and child?
Here in the US it’s always been that the kiddies have to have their own passport. I didn’t know anyplace did otherwise.
Oh yeah, here in the Netherlands it was the same. Now kids must get their own starting at age 14. At least they get their first ID-card for free from the government.
Actually, wouldn’t it be le gouvernement DE Canada? Like “the government of Canada” not “the government of the Canada”?
you are kidding right? Please say you are kidding!!!
nop dear … he’s right
“And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan
on visiting a farm in the next 15 days”
I’m sure glad I don’t live in Canada. If they’re asking nonsense like that, who knows how many more questions they ask that don’t make sense? O_o
You’ve never heard of mad cow disease? Been living in a cave have you?
actually hoof and mouth is more of a concern
mad cow disease is only transmitted through eating an infected cow’s brain. it’s not actually all that common for someone to go to a farm and go “Hey! you got any cow brains for me to eat?” of course i could be wrong on the eating cow brains.
Then they might as well ask if we’re planning on visiting someone with the mexican flu, ask if we’re gonna break into one of the few laboratories having access to the smallpox and spreading that, ask if we’re gonna sell cooked meat which got in contact with raw meat, etcetera.
Besides, what are they gonna do if he answers “yes, I’m gonna visit a farm in the next 15 days”? Are they not gonna renew his passport then because visiting a farm in the next 15 days means he can spread such deceases all over the world? Don’t make me laugh.
I think this is actually a standard question on customs forms, but not necessarily the passport renewal application in question. the author seems like he might be lumping the gov’t offices together but who can blame him when they’re that difficult and/or refuse to simply renew the damn thing?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to write a letter just like this to various customer service departments.
It’s true. This is exactly what the Canadian government is like.
i am just loving the tag – ‘o canada’ thanks EmailsFromCrazyPeople – THAT cracked me up
So true but this applies to all countries though. The people at the other end are just people like ‘you’ and me shuffling through shitloads of paperwork all day, everyday!! When you get the letter back asking for ‘more info’ it’s probably because someone is having a bad fucking day on the other end and felt like messing with a random person……..and it seems like it’s ALWAYS you!! Gotta love people right?
First!
As I was reading this, I was thinking “That’s funny, the Canadian government requires the same things as the Australian government does (having a doctor say you’re that nationality + asking whether you’ve been walking around farms to avoid spreading diseases to plants). Matt has a point then.
Actually, most of the things he’s complaining about have a reason behind them.
- Individual government departments are not permitted to share information databases. So Passport can’t look up your Tax Return info. This is because privacy nuts have a fit whenever anything remotely convenient is proposed.
- Births are tracked by provinces (and badly by some (Quebec, I’m looking at you, “baptismal certificate” BS)). Passports are issued by the feds. Why would the feds and provinces play nice for this when individual government departments can’t or won’t?
- Asking for an address. Because otherwise you’d get computers assuming that people lived in PO boxes. Which you don’t.
- You can’t smile in the photo because the system uses an automatic facial recognition system that doesn’t work as well with non-neutral facial expressions. It’s a fucking PASSPORT photo, not something we are going to blow up and put on your wall.
The guarantor thing is pretty stupid, yes.
Of course this takes all the fun out of a good rant, but it does explain why the guy at the passport office thinks YOU are the moron.
Also, they ask about farms to attempt to diminish the international spreading of diseases commonly found in farm animals such as mad cow, bird flu, swine flu etc.
*sigh* It’s a shame I’d read this letter before, but supposedly from England, and in chain letter format.
“and badly by some (Quebec, I’m looking at you, “baptismal certificate” BS)”
Hmmm it’s been years since that changed. Birth certificates are always required
Maybe so, but sometime around 2004, the nice folks at Passport Canada decided that if you were in possesion of a birth certificate issued in Quebec before 1994 (I think), that it wasn’t valid, so you had to apply for a new birth cert. before you could apply for a passport renewal.
I think all governments are probably just as stupid and useless. If they weren’t, maybe we all could just get along or something.
awwwww
This is absolutely true. We got new passports last year and had to jump through the same stupid hoops. However, my wife was born in Quebec, and due to new laws there had to go through an excruciating series of steps to even get a valid birth certificate. Her citizenship was even called into question at one point. This whole system is designed to give job security to bureaucrats.
good thing Obama wasn’t born in Quebec. oh wait Hawaii, same thing…
Yeah, why not create a big public file where everything from everybody is stored and can be accessed by anyone who cares. People wouldn’t need to bother to ask for your private data. The administration wouldn’t need to investigate or ask for your income. Insurance could access your file and find out if you have been filed for speeding or DUI. I would know if you already bought the stereo from radioshak I planned as a christmas gift. Your girlfriend could check out if you’ve visited some sites where strange things to chickens are done on a farm, or maybe your old pal could see if there are some indications whether to bring your relationship on a new level
You wouldn’t need to bother to go voting anymore ’cause the government could predict your vote from prior elections… The best thing would be to place a little chip in your brain which sends all your thoughts to that public file. No one would need to steal your time with any questions or inquiries anymore. That would be such a great world to live in. – Be glad for the little privacy you have left in this world, even if this means you have to deal with some freaky bureaucrats from time to time.
I got this mad trying to change the address on my driver’s license.
This person kind of sounds like a racist bigot. If this is even a real email.
why? is everyone at the passport office black or something? I see nothing mentioning anything about race AT ALL in such a letter.
His seeming obsession with pointing out he is white and therefore should not have to fill out any forms. As if other people who are not white should? If we want equality, yes, even people who have generations of family in Canada have to fill out forms. Otherwise, no, not blacks, but Muslims and Asians would be treated as second class citizens.
I think you read a different letter than I did…..I didn’t see a single reference to the writer’s race (or anyone else’s for that matter), and only a few references to national origin – one to China (which did not seem racial to me, just political, hence the modifier “Communist”) and one to how long his family had been in Canada (which also didn;t seem at all racial to me). What letter did you read? Can you quote the part where he has an “obsession with pointing out he is white and therefore should not have to fill out any forms.”? Cause I’m not seeing it……
Ehh, Australian government is the same. When I sent my sec licence app in, they decided that adding in both my middle names would be too much trouble. As a result, every time i’ve tried to renew it, i’ve had to run around gathering documents & character references to prove it’s actually me. They happily informed me that if I send them $60 (with all the supporting evidence… just incase) they’ll change it.. but… I won’t be able to work for 6 weeks during this process.
Wow. That DOES make me feel better.
At the same time… poor Canada.
I don’t think government ineptitude ever changes no matter where you go. It’s just a different kind of stupid.
First!
I’m a Canadian government worker and this email reminds me of all the crazies I have to deal with at my job. I’ve worked there for three years and have received five serious death threats from people…all because they did not complete their paperwork properly.
I don’t really like being told that someone is going to be waiting in the parking lot at work with a gun to blow my brains out but what can you do?
Great comment XDROOP! The one thing I’ve learned about the general public is that they are really ignorant when it comes to the reasoning behind procedures. I wish I had a nickel for every time I have had to give a mini lesson on government and the difference between federal and provincial governments.
I’ve heard Canadians were usually unfailingly polite. I guess this is the “unusual” time.
That’s been translated here’s the real thing
This guy needs to suck it up. His passport is not a guarantee, he is APPLYING for one. Of course they have his address on file. They ask him for it as a security question so that they know it is indeed “John Bloggins” from “123 Irate Ln” that they are speaking to.
As for the farm question, in some countries, they have insects, or diseases, or fungus in the soil that, if brought back to Canada, can wreck an entire industry and put thousands of people out of work – just look at what happened in the UK less than a decade ago with BSE and Hoof-and-mouth disease.
And yes, it would be very complicated to have birth certificates and passports in one place. In Canada, like in the US, we have different levels of government. One is Federal, which deals with passports. The other is Provincial, which deals with birth certificates. Who is responsible for what is enshrined in Canada’s Constitution, which is almost impossible to change. So yes, it would be very complicated and waste the time of both levels of government to change it.
The roles are set for everyone, so that everyone is treated equally. He needs to get approval from his doctor because doctors belong to a government-regulated profession and can be easily verified or tracked down if needed.
So he served in the military? So what? I’m a serving member and I don’t expect special treatment. Buddy may be over 50, but he still needs to grow up.
this is the best, I love this guy’s attitude and his writing style. just when you thought America was #1 in world bureaucracies, along came Canada to slip into the top spot!
hahaha…. i’m glad i live in a “uncivilized” latin country in wich all you have to do is go with your ID card and pay like 80$ and you get your passport in about 2 weeks… and you can smile
It’s not too bad in Denmark, either.. you just go to the police station with your old passport, your ID, a photo, and fill out a renewal form and turn all that in to them along with payment and you get a new passport in about 2 weeks.
Actually in Denmark we now just have to go to the local City Hall (“rådhus”) with a proper passport photo (new requirements due to… US requirements!) and the old passport, pay the fee, sign the pre-filled form (yes, they have your address and other info on file) and 1-2 weeks later the new passport is mailed to you.
If you have lost your previous passport the procedure is slightly more complex. You need your birth certificate (the original will do nicely – they make the copy they need thus making it trustworthy) and some picture ID as well as the passport photo, but then the procedure is the same and the delivery time the same as well.
For information’s sake, you don’t need to have an ‘important person’ act as guarantor anymore in Canada. Anyone who has been issued a Canadian passport can now sign for you. Much better than having to ask my pharmacist.
Also, my husband and I applied for Canadian passports last year with no difficulties at all, and received them in the mail 4 weeks after sending them in. Way fast.
I think generally people don’t follow instructions very well and then get mad when things don’t work out the way they want them to.
when did the guarantor thing change then? I know when I got mine a few years back I needed a guarantor, so I’m guessing that’s a recent change, and this is not a recent email.
Fuck yeah! This guy is awesome and not crazy at all. I would buy him a beer.
Steph i think you need to get laid
I work for the Canadian Government…this happens on a daily basis…we get so many great letters like this one…its the only good part about matching letters to files all day
You have to put your address on the form because it might have changed. In Canada you don’t have to get a new passport if your address changes, you can just cross out the old one and write in the new one but when you renew the passport your address has to be updated.
Birth dates are not on social security cards. I don’t see why he’d need a copy of his birth certificate to renew his passport. I didn’t, just needed my old passport.
Ya know, I work for a govt office ( bcause I need the money and never went to college) and hate it. I have to explain to these fuckin morons who vote for all these laws — for Homeland Security purposes, HA! — that EVERYONE needs to follow said laws and they get pissed. Don’t blame me asshole. Next time read the bills and make sure they exempt you by name or race or eye color or whatever and let me nap at my window.
oh man i just LOVE canada.
I literally could not stop laughing from “Shit!” onwards.
So what if this is nothing new? It’s hilarious.
Definitely not real; my mother, who lives in the US, forwarded me this exact email with an American spin to it.
Fake. Canada doesn’t have a military.
Yes, they do have a military:
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/index.html
You can read more information about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces
You can also read about the history of the Canadian Military forces here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Canada
That wooshing sound you heard was my comment flying over your head.
Fake or not, this one is really funny.
Nadir’s right, seems it’s a translation of a (even worse in the cursing department) French rant from someone in Québec. But with changed anglicized names and everything in the P.S comes from somewhere else too.
Oh man I can so relate having being in a similar situation with our beloved Canadian bureaucracy! I had been receiving a pension from the gov’t but all of a sudden they started asking me a million stupid questions. It was obvious some arsehole didn’t like my tone on the phone and decided to play with me. She sent a form to me to mail out the last….get this…10 years of my income tax returns! I had enough and did one better! I kept ever letter she sent me and sent the whole kit and kaboodle to the Minister and had her ass fired BUT NOT before she sent me a lengthy apology. They did however ask me to refrain from using profanity in my correspondences in the future as I had written in a big bold red sharpie marker on the last letter bitch sent me “Kindly Fuck Yourself!”
Oh, and within 4 weeks I got my pension in order. so you see, sometimes ya gotta fight fire with fire!
I’ve been traveling on a Canadian passport since I was 5. I’m now 35 and never had a problem until recently.
The government suddenly decided the same original birth certificate I’ve been using since 1974 was “invalid.” So, from where I live overseas, I had to track down the office in small-town Quebec where I was baptized 35 years ago! It took months.
BTW — My family are originally Chinese and I didn’t think the letter was racist! It’s pretty silly to take an online crazy rant seriously. : )
Here is the real thing. It’s in French, though.
I lol’d at the part where he addresses “Mr. Minister”. Minister of (Department X), Cabinet Minister, Prime Minister; none of them are referred to as Mr. Minister and none of them would be reading this letter.
Also Aussies, back off, this one’s ours.
(The google ad I’m getting at the bottom of the screen is for ‘Australia visas’. LOL)
This guy has a point. But I think the US tops them when it comes to immigration.
Through you championing details. It helped me in my task
This man isn’t insane! He’s sane in an insane world!!
But more importantly, my new hero. As a Canadian I have had this experience while trying to get my healthcard…are you aware that a letter from Ontario Health isn’t an important enough letter to use as proof of address….when applying to get a healthcard from Ontario Health??