Thirteen weeks later

I'll admit I had been prepared for some delays and thought the 6-8 week timeline unduly optimistic but I really believed that now, thirteen weeks after June 1, I would have got something in the mail.

Anecdotal accounts tell of some 2007 applicants having gotten their info, but these are few and hard to come by. Secondhand information suggests that the Ontario government has processed the first batch of the 2007 Post-Adoption Birth Information requests, with a large pile of 2007 requests and all 2009 requests still pending.

The government's handling of this wait period is absolutely inexcusable. All the applications yet processed are from 2007; all the relevant vetoes and other forms arrived, at latest, just after June 1. By mid-July, it must have been evident how long it would take to process these documents.

Instead of presenting us with a realistic time estimate, they tossed out 12 weeks as a bone to the baying masses. I spoke to a very polite ServiceOntario rep on the phone, so I'm quite sure of what they promised: 12 weeks from receipt of the request (or from June 1 for requests from 2007). It's now obvious that, just as they couldn't deliver in 6-8 weeks from June 1, they can't deliver now.

While I appreciate that adoption disclosure is not the Ontario government's highest priority, they have a duty not to offer us misleading time estimates. It's clear that on this file, they're bad schedulers, slow workers, or awful communicators. They have to step up their game: this is a one-time event, can't it justify a little more attention?