New Passport

Since I got married and changed my name, I've been going through the process of changing all of my documentation to reflect my new name. It is not a task I have enjoyed because it has been taking up a lot of my time and can be frustrating to deal with many offices full of bureaucracy.

Today's name change task is dealing with my passport. I had been delaying the update because of my travel schedule. Your passport must match your ticket in name, so I had to keep my passport in my maiden name until I stopped traveling long enough to surrender it and get the update.

Until recently, you could have your new married name pasted into your passport as an "observation" until it expired and you had to reapply. In the last couple of years (well after 9/11) the Canadian gov't decided they would no longer follow this process, and instead are forcing married women to reapply from scratch.

I do not agree with this new policy, and I believe it is an effort by the gov't to squeeze even more money out of me by making me pay the $87 again, when my passport is only 2 years old. Why don't they offer the option of having me appear in person at a government office, providing all of my documentation, verifying that I am who I say I am, and that I have a new last name? As long as my married identity is verified by an official, why clog the system with an innocuous married name change? What was so bad about the "observation" that it had to be done away with?

So here I sit, following this dumb rule, and will take about an hour for me to be seen. At least they are playing 80s music in the waiting area. I may start karaokeing soon.