Letter to the editor

Our world these days depends more and more on technology but I find it very disturbing that all forms of government now assume that everyone has a computer and is computer literate.

The covid vaccination program is just one of the confusing things we have to deal with recently and I find most people are relying on word of mouth to keep them informed.

The days of calling an office and speaking to a person are long gone and most of us are used to dealing with machines that tell us to press one for English, etc.

Yesterday I received my home tax bill and to get the home owners grant is now not just a matter of filling in the information on the bottom of the form. It now has to be done on line or by phone, I chose the phone.

The process was easy enough, just a case of pushing phone buttons in answer to five or six questions
However, when I had done that the messages stopped and I have no idea how to pay my taxes. Do I just automatically deduct the grant as in the past? Can I pay on line? If I just send in the adjusted amount, will the office have the information that I qualify for the grant?

I think the town office is going to have lots of people arrive to pay their taxes with no idea what their status is. This is not going to make work any easier for the clerks, in fact they are probably going to be faced with a room full of confused people.

I don’t think I am dumb when it comes to managing my life but so many of the recent occasions of dealing with beaurocracy have left me totally confused.

A recent attempt to change my address for GST rebate was a nightmare as the computer kept telling me that my information is wrong and wouldn’t accept the request. By talking to others, I discovered that the tax office does not accept the change in post code from our old V0H 1T0 which was changed many years ago.

A time saver, I really don’t think so.