Bureaucracy is everywhere

One of the biggest challenges so far related to moving to Saskatchewan has been getting used to a new set of rules and new terminology related to the many bureaucratic tasks of daily life. The most annoying part is that across the board, it seems that American bureaucracies and Canadian bureaucracies cannot talk to each other.

This means that because I have never lived in Canada, despite a perfect credit history in the U.S., I cannot get a credit card. Jeff had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get a low-limit card, which he just got yesterday, about a month after applying. At first we thought this couldn't possibly be correct, but after speaking to multiple people and agencies, it seems that this is how things work. I am still unclear on this, but I may not be eligible to hold a Canadian credit card until I obtain permanent resident status, which may take a year or two. We are not sure what all this will mean for us if we apply for a mortgage loan, but we may be denied due to lack of credit history in Canada. This is not something we had thought about at all before moving here.

Similarly, we have run into roadblocks related to registering our car and getting driver's licenses (not that I am driving currently, but I need a local form of ID). Our car had to go through inspections to be imported into Canada, and another set of inspections to be registered in SK. This resulted in us having to put about $2500 of work into a car that is only worth about $3000, none of it related to critical safety issues or impending mechanical failure. We would have sold the car before we moved, had we known this would happen, and had we had the time to do it.

But, we finally got all that taken care of, and yesterday went to try to get driver's licenses and register the car (you have to have a SK license to register your vehicle here, as is true most places). Unfortunately, we failed-- due to a combination of a lack of understanding of terminology on our part, and the inability of Canadian and American systems to communicate, we were unable to produce adequate documentation that we had been driving for at least two years (despite the fact of having licenses issued more than two years ago, and having brought evidence of having been licensed for a full 16 years). We have since obtained copies of our driving records (thank goodness WA allows you to access this online), and should be able to take care of this on Saturday. However, in the mean time, our Washington vehicle registration expired, so we had to renew for a full year in order to have everything in place to register in SK tomorrow (again, thank goodness we were able to do this online). A lot of time and energy and money spent because someone somewhere has made rules that seem to me to defy common sense.

Otherwise, things are pretty good. We had a very nice Thanksgiving, and just finished the last of the pie last night. Here we are getting ready to eat:

And here are our friends Brandon and Krista, who visited from Lethbridge:

A good time was had by all :)