Government bureaucracy

The federal government wants to audit me.

Specifically, my Child Tax Credit account.

You see, we had a baby recently. And I am unemployed, aka stay-at-home-mom. I file income tax every year and declare my nonexistant income to the government.

I was born in Canada, so was my husband. Both our kids were born here as well.

But I have still been “randomly selected” for this “regular review”.

I have to provide, as proof of my citizenship, the paper version of my Canadian Citizenship card.

Um…my card was given to my parents when I was born in laminated form. The paper version has only existed recently; like maybe 3 years ago or so. I know this because my less than 3 year old firstborn has a paper version citizenship card.

So I look on the list of other possible forms of proof I can provide to them. Even though they have access to all this stuff at various levels of government, not at least through my SIN number.

Passport…ok. Check. Got one of those. Photocopy it and get it ready.

Next item:

Please provide acceptable proof of birth for your daughter.

Hm.

I provided various forms of proof to the various places that want to know of her birth within weeks of her birth. First, I submitted to the city her registration form. They received it because I can see that they have taken the money from the financial information I provided.

The city is then supposed to submit the information on to the province who will issue the birth certificate to me.

Since I have applied for it online over a month and a half ago, I figured there is a way to find out the status of her birth certificate online.

I tried, but the “service is unavailable today, please check again later”.

So I call.

I go through the various press 1 press, press 2 options, am told by an automated machine several times to check the status online at www bladibla and then finally get a voice.

He wants to know the file number.

I don’t have access to the file number but he managed to pull up the information based on the name.

How. Nice.

(aside note: the guy was very cranky-sounding, like I was bugging him with this call)

I finally get to the question I wanted to ask, and he informs me that it takes 4 months (!) to submit the birth certificate to us. But not to worry, he can see that it’s in process.

How. Utterly. Nice.

So I go back to my little letter from the government and check for “other acceptable proof” suggestions.

One is a hospital record of birth.

We got one from the same hospital for our firstborn, but for this child, all we received was a hospital discharge page. It had the same information on it, but the title is different. Knowing how particular governmental divisions can be about things like that, I thought I better confirm that this is acceptable to their standards.

I could also provide a record of the physician who attended the birth…well, I don’t have that. Should I have that? Who provides this information to the parent? I didn’t get it, far as I can remember.

I call the secretary of my OBGYN and leave a message. She’s really nice and no matter how busy, she’s always pleasant. I apologize profusely for leaving such a lengthy message, but since the federal government is running the show here, I tell her that I need clarification, and possible copies of letters, from her office shortly.

My husband who isn’t a fan of government bureaucracy is actually quite lax about this entire situation. Probably because he’s not the one running around looking for the various papers. Or getting audited for that matter.

But he did say I shouldn’t take it personally. That they are likely simply trying to keep tabs on who is getting what and who is cheating the system.

Well heck.

It’s not like I have nothing else to do.