Let me start off with a concession: I’m not particularly fussed by the idea of some ServiceOntario locations being moved to kiosks in Staples stores. At least, the idea doesn’t seem crazy to me in principle: the last time I needed to renew my health card, I did it at a ServiceOntario kiosk in a Canadian Tire location, and the experience was not obviously different from any other time the government has demanded that I prove I still fog any nearby mirror. The wait was pretty long, but it was still in the period when the government was digging out from under the COVID-19 backlog, and I don’t think the big red triangle was specifically to blame.
I’ve got greater concerns for the workers affected, who deserve more than banal assurances they’ll be allowed to apply for new positions with Staples — whatever its merits, working for Staples doesn’t replace the substantial benefits that come from working for the Crown. And even if it did, making people reapply for the jobs they already hold isn’t how any of us would prefer to be treated.
And we should all cock at least one eyebrow at the fact that Staples was awarded a sole-sourced contract without any kind of competitive bidding. Those of us old enough to remember 2010 will recall that, during Rob Ford’s mayoral bid, now-premier Ford and his late brother successfully railed against sole-sourced contracts tendered by Toronto city council.
Nevertheless, with those (substantial!) caveats stated, there’s an undeniable logic to the idea: lots of large retailers are shrinking their retail footprints as more and more commerce moves online, so there’s reason to believe that the government can get a decent deal for the floorspace it needs — and save money relative to the status quo. Retailers, of course, aren’t alone in dealing with more of their business going online: the government has made many services available virtually, including some of the ones people most frequently need an in-person kiosk for, such as renewing provincially issued IDs or licence-plate tags for their vehicles. That’s no replacement for having a real live human to talk to when the website doesn’t work or someone can’t work it, but it’s the obvious context for the government’s decision.
What concerns me isn’t moving ServiceOntario locations to share space with large, reasonably busy retailers. What concerns me is that ServiceOntario currently works. It works much better than some of the existing comparable services, and while I can understand the logic behind this move, this government’s record on execution leaves me worried that its general lack of interest in the nuts and bolts of how government services operate will break something that Ontarians rely on to access life-and-death services.
When I need to renew my health card or driver’s licence, ServiceOntario is pretty painless and efficient. When I needed to get my marriage licence or my child’s birth certificate, doing so was easy enough that I don’t even remember the process — “forgettably convenient” is a pretty good yardstick for public service! By contrast, when I need to renew my passport (the only major piece of ID issued federally rather than provincially), the process is consistently a soul-destroying nightmare that makes me beg for the sweet release of the reaper’s blade, and this has been true my whole adult life.
I’m sure some people have nightmare stories they could share about ServiceOntario, even if that’s never been my experience. But the contrast between ServiceOntario (mostly quick, efficient, and easy) and the federal passport office (which makes unanesthetized dentistry seem appealing) raises a broader point: governments have specific competencies, things they’re good at because they’ve put the work in to get good at them. The provinces, having been responsible primarily for vital documents like birth certificates and driver’s licences for a very long time, are mostly very good at handling this stuff. For the feds, the passport office is an afterthought’s afterthought, except for the occasions when it rises above the usual disaster and becomes a headline-grabbing disaster.
(One of the smaller regrettable episodes of the COVID-19 pandemic was the provincial whining that vaccination passports should have been issued federally instead of provincially; it was foolish and self-serving and also jurisdictionally illiterate. The provinces lead on health care, public health, and the issuance of vital documents — it was always going to fall to the premiers, even if they’d really rather Ottawa take the political heat.)
Moving 11 of the hundreds of ServiceOntario locations into some big-box stores won’t, on its own, undo the province’s history and hard work of delivering these services efficiently. I can’t help but worry, though, that the Tories will defend this move almost no matter what happens: this isn’t going to be subjected to any kind of real scrutiny about whether it’s improving or degrading service levels, because the government (like all governments) wants to declare its decisions to be always and everywhere correct. This will be called a win, and calling it a win will create political momentum to do more of it, regardless of the facts on the ground.
Which leaves me worried that, despite the underlying logic of the idea, we could end up looking back on this week as the point at which a key part of provincial public service — one of the few areas where citizens really have to interact with the province directly, unmediated by municipal or other bodies —started to fray and fall apart. If the Tories break something that was working well before they won power, voters will and should remember that.
Donate