Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Just go to the grocery store

A comedy of experiences yesterday conspired to bring you today’s column.

First up, the non-stop lineups witnessed at two separate LCBOs over the space of eight hours as folks scrambled to stock up on their favourite spirits and dinner wines in case of a walkout by LCBO employees.

It brought back two names from the past: Former Premiers Ralph Klein (Alberta) and Mike Harris (Ontario). Klein, to his credit, followed through on his promise to privatize liquor stores in Alberta and get the province out of the booze monopoly business. On the other hand, privatizing the LCBO never emerged from the Harris Tories’ common sense revolution.

Do we live in such a nanny state that we can’t trust the private sector to sell wine and spirits with the appropriate regulations and codes of conduct in place?

The private sector can sell MRI machines to save lives. Private dentists can fix your teeth. And private companies can employ pilots to fly us around the world. But, alas, here in Ontario, society would collapse if we allowed entrepreneurs to sell you a bottle of wine or scotch.

If you compare the choice and pricing of the LCBO to private outlets in Alberta or the States, it becomes self-evident that the Ontario government doesn’t do this whole customer service thing too well. Which brings us to my trot down to City Hall yesterday to renew my health card, driver’s licence and plate stickers.

After standing in the entry line for 15 minutes before the provincial service centre opened at 8:30 a.m., I was directed over to counter two to begin my odyssey. However, the clerk’s computer at counter two was on the fritz so I was then punted to the gentlemen at counter five. I bet you Canadian Idol contestants get through their auditions with less hassle.

Meanwhile the initial info clerk continued to send people to counter two who were then sent on to counter five. It looked like a bad conga line from the 1980s.

About 15 minutes later, I renewed my health card which was painless enough. However, the concept of one-stop shopping seems to have escaped the braintrust at Queen’s Park as I could not renew my driver’s licence, unless I was getting the enhanced version. Ah, no thanks, no need for this expense with an up-to-date passport.

Then the nice man told me I could go to the local MTO office to get my licence renewed. “Thanks sir, but how does that help me today, right now? And isn’t this supposed to be a one-stop centre for all my Ontario identification needs?” Apparently it was a rhetorical question since no answer was given.

To top it all off, I tried to renew my plate stickers at the kiosk out in the hall. Oops, small problem, after starting the procedure the screen told me my insurance company was not “recognized” as I keyed in the letters.

Suffice it to say, the Ontario government doesn’t do customer service too well. Too bad none of the PC Party hopefuls picked up on this theme over the past few months during their sleepy leadership contest.

Thankfully, the day ended better than it started as I was able to buy wine, drop off the drycleaning, pick up a prescription, get gas, buy some stuff for dinner, and do my banking (heck, I could have even negotiated a mortgage) … all at my local grocery store. If only our provincial government was as efficient and effective.