Dear Mrs. McLeod

June 13, 2009 – Day 164

I received a letter in the mail from Ross (my stepdad) on Thursday. It was a letter addressed to mom that he received a couple months ago. The author of the letter apologizes for “the delay in responding”. Delay is an understatement; Mom has been dead for nearly seven years!

If you’re going to respond to a a letter seven years later, shouldn’t you exercise common sense enough to do a little research and verify that the addressee is still at the address on file – or even alive anymore?!

In my opinion, the seven year delay of this response to mom’s letter epitomizes governmental bureaucracy/red tape and it makes me angry! Perhaps part of what’s behind my anger is sadness in wishing that mom was alive to read her mail.

”Dear Mrs. McLeod:

I refer to your duplicate Application for Registration under the Indian Act and additional information dated March 5, 2002 and received on March 15, 2002. I apologise for the delay in responding. Please find enclosed the photograph you provided to our office.

From the information that has been provided, I have been able to determine that your maternal grandmother, Julie Andrews nee Sunshine is entitled to be registered under the provisions of section 6(1)(c) of the Indian Act. Your mother, Eulalie Andrews, is registered under Section 6(2) of the Indian Act as her mother is registered under a provision of Section 6(1)(c) of the Act. It has not been possible to identify your father, Leo Clarence Kunce, as someone who is registered or entitled to be registered under the provisions of the Indian Act.

There is no provision in the Indian Act to allow for the registration of a person when one of the parents is entitled under section 6(2) when the other parent is not an Indian as defined by the Act or is not identified.

You have not provided any new information that would change my prdecessor’s decision of August 15, 1988. Please find enclosed a copy of that letter.”

The enclosed letter dated August 15, 1988 basically said the same thing as this one did.