With her birthday coming up, Hazel Braithwaite got a letter in the mail saying it was time to renew her driver’s licence.
Except now it’s more complicated than that: These days, you’re urged to combine your driver’s permit with the new high-tech B.C. Services Card, which is being phased in to replace the CareCard that British Columbians have carried in their wallets since 1989.
No big deal. Hazel, an Oak Bay councillor, got her hair done (hey, if it’s going to be your ID for the next five years, you might as well look good) and headed to the driver’s licence office first thing in the morning, when it’s not too busy.
Uh-oh, they said. Can’t combine your licence with a B.C. Services Card. The full name on your licence — Hazel Braithwaite — doesn’t match the Hazel Short Braithwaite on your CareCard.
Braithwaite explained that she wasn’t given a middle name at birth in England (after seven kids, her parents might have run out of imagination), so when she got married in Alberta in 1985 she took her maiden name as a middle name. It’s on her passport, her SIN card …
Sorry, she was told. Without proof of a legal name change, documents with conflicting names can’t be combined. Come back with the right paperwork, and we’ll start the process again. In the meantime, they snapped her photo, charged her $75 for a renewed stand-alone driver’s licence bearing the short (as opposed to Short) version of her name, and sent her off with a number to call.
So Braithwaite calls B.C. Vital Statistics. Uh-oh, they said. Alberta, that’s a problem. Something about their marriage certificates not being taken as proof of legal name change. Better call Alberta Vital Statistics.
OK, Braithwaite does so, to the bemusement of the Albertans. “It seemed weird to them that B.C. couldn’t figure it out,” she said. They scratched their heads, transferred her call a couple of times, then told her to phone the Alberta Queen’s Printer, which she did, only to be told to (wait for it) call Alberta Vital Statistics.
It was at this point that she began to feel as though she was in Abbott and Costello’s Who’s On First routine.
She calls Alberta Vital Statistics again, spends half an hour on hold before it becomes clear that they don’t have the kind of documents B.C. wants. Canada’s passport office might believe in her, but as far as this province is concerned, Hazel Short Braithwaite simply doesn’t exist.
“I resigned myself to the fact that I’ve been living a lie for 31 years.” (The good people of Oak Bay must be shocked.)
Right, might as well make the name change official, she says, and heads for B.C. Vital Statistics’ Fort Street office.
Uh-oh, they said, you need a criminal-record check. Go to Victoria police.
But being an Oak Bay councillor, Braithwaite decides to shop local and calls that department instead. Actually, she’s told, you have to go to the Commissionaires on Cloverdale.
Arriving there, she is advised she should have booked an appointment, but they squeeze her in anyway (even though the soccer-loving commissionaire is a Newcastle supporter and she roots for rival Sunderland). It costs $70 for a record check, including fingerprinting.
Then it’s back to B.C. Vital Statistics, where she forks over $154 to apply for a legal name change to Hazel Short Braithwaite (the name that has been on her passport and all her other documents for 31 years) and is told to expect something in the mail in eight weeks.
By now, Braithwaite’s getting a little punchy. She has been at this for close to six hours. Adding the cost of the driver’s licence renewal, the criminal-record check, the name-change application, the parking and the long-distance calls, she’s down more than $300. (Oh, and don’t forget the cost of the new hair-do).
So she staggers back to the driver’s licence office, clutching the piece of paper that says she has applied for a name change. Except by now it’s late afternoon and the lineup is 25 minutes long. Finally, she gets to the counter and. … Uh-oh, they say, an application isn’t enough. We need proof of an actual name change.
And that was that.
Braithwaite points out that everyone she dealt with was polite and eager to help.
“Everybody was really lovely.”
At the end of the day, though, she was reeling. “It’s not something I would like to repeat.”
The thing is, you don’t have to combine your driver’s licence with your B.C. Services Card. You may walk around with the former in one name and the latter in another.
But if you do want to combine them, as we are being urged to do, should it really be that hard?
The Insurance Corp. of B.C. said it would reach out to Braithwaite. But the corporation also said it’s serious about this stuff, and that using the proper “foundation name” — generally the one on your birth certificate, or your spouse’s surname if you adopt it at marriage — is important in fighting identity theft.
Anyway, happy birthday, Hazel Short Braithwaite, or whoever you are.
At least your hair looks great.
