Or “Struggling With The Feds”

I’ve had occasion to deal with Service Canada, or the Feds, just recently, and as ever it’s been like wading through treacle. It’s not difficult, and the people are really nice, it’s just the processes are labyrinthine in nature and glacial in progress.

I’ve been trying to apply for my Canada Pension Plan (CPP) payouts for a while now. One thing the Feds are quite good at is running a good online system, but not on this occasion. Each time I went into their website and logged on successfully, the system told me that the CPP applications system wasn’t available. I tried it on various browsers, in various operating systems, but each time I hit “Error 500, System Unavailable”.

Eventually, I got around to visiting my local Service Canada office to see what was going on. The very nice people there scratched their heads for a few minutes then, after a delve into their computers, said what no one wants to hear, “You’re not on the system”. Bugger, I thought.

This was all a bit perplexing, though, as I had logged into the Government system using my Insurance number, and been recognised. I had in the past applied for and received Employment Insurance benefits from the very same people that handle the CPP. What on earth was going on? Then came the next thing you never want to hear, “You’ll need to apply using a paper application form”. Bugger (again), I thought.

They gave me a sheaf of papers and said I could fill the form in there, but it required more information than I had to hand (actually my banking details, the same details they had used to pay my other benefits). I was on the point of giving up, at least in the Service Canada office, when the nice lady came over and gave me another sheaf of forms, this time for Old Age Security (OAS, a benefit automatically payable to oldies like me, which is supposed to happen without input from me). “You’re not on the system” she said, “So you’d best fill this in as well”. Bugger, I thought, for the third time.

Of course, the second form asked for all of the same information that the first for asked for; God forbid that “the system” could pull details that were identical from one application to another.

I did say to the nice lady that I must be on the system because I’d used it a few times, but all she could say was “Different systems”.

Then it dawned on me why I couldn’t apply online. The system wasn’t unavailable in general, just to me. Ah, you live and learn.

So, I brought the forms home, filled them in, and returned the completed articles to the nice people at Service Canada. Of course, processing paper applications takes far longer than the online application, so I guess I shall have to wait.

The ironic thing is that both my CPP and OAS payments are going to be miniscule. But, I’ve paid into both schemes, so I want my return, but what a lot of unnecessary work.

Of course, I’m really not complaining. It’s great to live in a country that has such good Government sponsored schemes that are not at the mercy of commercial interests, and “the market”. I just wish the processes were a wee bit more swept up.