Not in Kansas Anymore

Most Canadians are aware that Alberta, unlike other provinces in Canada, has privatised the sale of alcoholic beverages. In Quebec, it's semi-private in that beer and some wine may be sold in grocery and convenience stores, but hard liquor, and a much better selection of wines and imported beers is only available at the government-run Société des Alcools du Québec – SAQ. But here in Alberta, the retail side of alcohol is entirely private. This gives rise to the same problem for newcomers as I have described with respect to grocery shopping. How do we choose which store(s) to patronise? The variables in making the decision are complex. Visits to three or four different stores have revealed that they all seem to cater to a specific clientele, with their own selection of products, slightly different prices in some cases, and in-store specials. As with groceries, it will come down to a matter of finding store(s) that cater to our specific tastes. And, although the choice may seem a bit overwhelming (except, so far, when it comes to French wines!) as with groceries, we have already come across some interesting discoveries of products unknown in Quebec.

One thing about Alberta we didn't know about before has to do with the acquisition of government documents for vital statistics and that sort of thing. In New Brunswick when you need to acquire a birth certificate or marriage license, you go to Service New Brunswick; across Canada when you need to apply for a pension or employment insurance you go to Service Canada. There is an organization called Service Alberta, but as near as I can tell, it doesn't actually provide any services to the general public. Instead, its role seems to be to regulate the provision of vital statistics services by private companies called registries. So, rather than simply look up the location of the nearest government office to go and get started on becoming recognized Albertans, we had to go through the same kind of choice of private company with which to do that business as with groceries. We looked through different companies' websites from among several that seemed within reasonable proximity and made our choice. Fortunately we found one that was pretty close and looked like a reasonable company to deal with. Once we made our choice, the process wasn't any more complex than dealing with a government office, though I don't know that it was much better. OK, scratch that. Since I wrote this I was contacted by the (private) registry office to say there was a small error in my file that had to be corrected. Thing is, the person I dealt with went to some lengths to find me, because when I went in I didn't yet have a local telephone number. I don't know how hard a government functionary would have worked to track me down. So kudos to the person for going the extra kilometre. And so we are now armed with temporary drivers' licenses, and await the permanent ones in the mail.

I suppose that in becoming recognized as Albertans by the Alberta government, not actually interacting with a government agency to do so makes us real Albertans.

We're certainly not in Kansas anymore.