A snarl of bureaucrats

Ok, there is probably a real term for a gathering of many bureaucrats, just as a flock of sheep or a herd of cows.  But snarl seems good enough for now.

I may have mentioned a week or so ago that we were in this weird limbo where the work visas had sort of lapsed (at least for the purpose of signing up for new social services) but we still had to cross the border to get the Permanent Residency made official by an immigration officer.  So this meant we had to cross the border (at Buffalo) a lot sooner than I had planned.  It also means roughly a one-month gap from when the BC health care lapses and the OHIP kicks in, which is not ideal.

I may write about the Buffalo experience at more length later, but it was not a positive one.  I think the US border agents were deliberately making life harder for the Ontario residents trying to cross over for the long weekend.  I saw plenty of cars being searched.  Anyway, it was a 3+ hour delay, which seems simply ridiculous.  We never did manage to get to the Albright-Knox Museum, though in the end we did see Niagara Falls.

Coming back was a snap, since we were doing the crossing back Sat. in the late afternoon rather than Sunday evening or Monday.  This was basically the pattern of the trip from hell to Seattle.  It has made me vow never to drive to the US on a holiday weekend ever again.  I've pretty much swore off Buffalo as well, though perhaps I will relent and take Megabus to the Albright-Knox in the late fall for an exhibit on Helen Frankenthaler.

Anyway, the immigration officer wasn't super efficient, but eventually we got through.  So we are landed Canadians now.  What a lot of work, though most of it was in the distant past.  Now there is another gap until the cards come in the mail, but we should be able to travel to the US at least.

Then yesterday we went back to register for OHIP and ended up with a very helpful clerk who got us squared away.  We didn't even have to go back in line for the Ontario drivers licences.  This really was quite a good experience.  The good feelings didn't last, however, as we got the complete run-around trying to get the kids registered for school.  I was told twice to bring them up to the main offices only to find out that no, they said we should just bring them to the local school the last week of August and there should be no problem.  How reassuring.  I actually did fire off a letter of complaint on the school board's web site.  What made this particularly frustrating is that the school board offices are up in North York Centre, so way, way, way out of our way (though at least right on the subway).

Finally, today I am going to try to trade in my old SIN card for a new number.  With that, almost all the bureaucracy is finally out of the way.  What a struggle...

Edit: Getting the SIN card fixed was a snap, less than 15 minutes, though apparently I still need to let Canada Revenue know where I am.  So I guess three out of four wasn't so bad...