Red, White (and Blue) Tape

I've been battling bureaucracy over benefits. Frustrating, hair pulling, mind boggling, screamingly maddening - but a minefield of unexpectedly laughable conundrums.

Bureaucracy: the right hand can't even talk to the left!

Get this, the Canadian government actually has policies that prevent one agency from talking to another. So when you are told you need to provide documents from Immigration and Border Services and Old Age Security, you have to deal with all three separately to get what you need for the fourth.

On the good side: some pitying souls were aware of this quagmire and created an agency called Service Canada that does nothing but smooth your path through the labyrinth.  

And there is an office in my tiny town.

Unfortunately, I didn't know about it until I'd had some freakishly frustrating days negotiating automatic phone mazes, making sense of unhelpful uncivil servant instructions & scrounging for 40-year-old records, etc.

The reason I didn't know about it is a perfect Catch 22: they are forbidden to advertise hours, location or have a local phone number. (They explained the government didn't want them to not be available when someone called or tried to come into the office.) Knowledge of their existence is totally word of mouth.

Now that I have found Service Canada, I can laugh. I still won't get benefits for perhaps six months, but the advice from the very polite and helpful young man was that if it takes that long, call my MP (congressman) and I'd get it in weeks (!) This, as he was making copies of my records to send (for free) to the proper offices and calling those offices to ask for an extension to my application (and getting through immediately).

You have to love a government that is so aware of their bollixed up bureaucracy that they create an agency to untangle it - for those who are in the know.

That's just Canada - I deal with the US next year. Wonder if there's  a Service America to help me out.