Me vs. The ICBC

Posted on August 4, 2006
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In moving to British Columbia I learned that I have 90 days in which to get my new BC driver’s license (which makes me wonder what they’d have done to me if I took longer than 90 days? Deport me back to Ontario?) and 30 days within which to get my province-run auto insurance established. Which is fine, if not a little odd given that if you own the vehicle you need to get your license before you can get your insurace, but ok.

Being from Canada, specifically Ontario, and being somewhat well-travelled in that I’ve actually left the country to places I can’t drive to, I’m pretty used to my passport being valid proof of both my existence (physical self notwithstanding) and my Canadianity (not to be confused with my Canadian-ness, proven through my humility and love of winter). In fact in Ontario to get a driver’s license you pretty much just show up with a passport and voila! you’re free to terrorize bikes and the elderly everywhere. I figured it was probably the same in BC. In fact this is the land of leftys, granola and dopers, I figured they’d probably just accept a yearbook photo and a kind letter from my mom.

Oh how wrong I was.

Yesterday morning I headed down to 800 Hornby with my passport, Ontario driver’s license and SIN card ready to drop the vestiges of Ontario and learn to drive like crap like everyone else here (for the love of god people, a green light is not a red light in drag - keep moving!).

Turns out in BC a passport is, well, worthless. But not really. In the card game of personal ID a passport is trumped by a birth certificate, the royal flush of self-evidence and of course the one piece of ID I haven’t used since I was, oh, licensed to drive in Ontario 17 years and got a driver’s license.

I was a bit surprised by this (though I suppose I should not have been what with the Google and all), that my passport was a lesser ID, lesser in fact even to a temporary visitor permit, presumably issued to folks who have just come to Canada on a lark, won’t be staying long, and want to take a spin down Hwy 1 a bit.

I asked the man at the counter (who was in fact quite pleasant): “My passport is no good”?

“Not primary ID” says he.

“But… it’s a passport” say I (it was early in the morning, my wit and repartee take time to wake up), “and an Ontario driver’s license.”

“Got a birth certificate?” he asks.

“Well yes, but it’s at home, probably in a box”.

“Need a birth certificate” says he.

“But why is a passport not good enough to be primary” I ask, “it’s a passport?” (still a bit slow I admit).

“Because you could have changed your name and the name on your passport and other driver’s license wouldn’t match your birth certificate” he says as though I’ve just stepped off the short bus and have yet to properly adjust my hockey helmet and mittens.

You, dear reader, no doubt also see the flaw in this argument but in case you don’t an Ontario driver’s license is a piece of paper, perhaps laminated, that has your name, date of birth and… well that’s it really. No security marks in my case (it was issued some few years ago), no picture ID (though wouldn’t that be fun?) nothing else of interest but the words “Canadian Bank Note” down at the bottom. I wonder if it’s got currency value….

I point out to the gentleman that, name legally being changed notwithstanding, if I had changed my name and, as he notes, the names on the documents would be different, what proof would he have that the pictureless, signatureless birth certificate in my hands was actually mine and not just rented from some enterprising fellow named Bob Dobbs for purposes of my gaining a fake driver’s license?

“The birthdate on your passport and Ontario driver’s license would match the one on the birth certificate” he says though I can see its with a bit of effort, as though he may have just started to get aboard my though train.

I am rendered quite literally speechless at this as I contemplate the mobius strip of identification authentication he’s just described to me. I need primary ID (birth certificate) along with secondary ID (passport) to get more secondary ID (driver’s license). However in the event that the primary ID is useless for identification purposes it’s authenticity is then validated by the secondary ID. This effectively promotes the secondary ID to status of primary ID and the primary ID to status of useless… except that without useless you cannot have primary and thus no secondary and thus no driver’s license.

At this point my girlfriend, being born in Slovakia, points out that she doesn’t have a birth certificate either. “Got a citizenship card?” he asks.

She does indeed so she can get a driver’s license.

“A citizenship card trumps a passport?” I ask, somewhat confused.

“Proves who she is. It has her name and date of birth and picture on it” he replies.

“Kind of like a…” I start to say but he cuts me off. He knows where I’m going, I see the resignation in his face. He holds his hands up a bit:

“I don’t make the rules”.

Touché. Checkmate.

I don’t even bother to point out that the picture on her citizenship card was taken was she was seven.

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Later, while having breakfast at The Elbow Room I look above the bar and see a notice that two pieces of valid photo ID are required to get a drink there (by this point I could have used a drink, too bad it was only 10am). Guess that passport’s good for something after all.

I leave the last word to Bill Bailey and Gas Bill [mp3].

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