In a move to cut costs, the Ontario government recently announced the closure of nine Service Ontario offices, including the one at 1 Stone Road in Guelph.
Then, just a month later, on June 6, 2016 the province announced it would be suspending the planned closure of those Service Ontario locations.
“Recently, a decision was made to close nine centres in selected communities across the province over the next year,” said Anne-Marie Flanagan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services.
“It is important for us to take more time and do a further review of this decision in order to ensure that we continue to provide the best service for our customers while being fiscally responsible.”
The Stone Road location has more services than the north-end location, including driver’s licence and health card renewals, business and employment services, fishing and hunting licences and provincial tax information.
The Silvercreek location offers drivers licence and health card renewals. The closest Service Ontario locations for those additional services is located in Kitchener.
“Our goal is and always has been to maintain a sustainable, multi-channel network. Service Ontario is committed to continually refining our services and service delivery options to better match customer demand,” said Flanagan.
The land registry office located in Service Ontario at the Stone Road location would also close, which a local land surveyor says is a bad move.
The closures were to “maintain a cost effective and sustainable multi-channel network” wrote Ken Wilkinson, manager of survey services at the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, in a May 5 letter to the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors.
The letter states, “a comprehensive analysis of communities across the province showed that the identified sites could be consolidated while minimizing the impact to customers due to access to e-service delivery and the proximity of other land registry office locations in the area.”
However, Derek Graham of Graham Surveys in Elora said the closure of the Guelph office would be more than just a slight inconvenience.
Graham, who attends the Guelph location regularly, said the move would cost more in terms of parking, travelling and time in general. He also said there is little opportunity in the online service for title searches, because it uses micro film.
“You can’t read the stuff,” he said. “You have to physically be there to make certain you have all the information. It could be one document, it could be 10.”
Members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) held a demonstration on June 14 to call on Guelph MPP Liz Sandals to help keep the Stone Road location open for good.
“The purpose of our demonstration is to tell (Sandals) and the Liberal government, that our Service Ontario offices are not theirs to close,” said OPSEU executive board member Drew Finucane.
“Service Ontario belongs to the people of Ontario. We own it, and we intend to keep it.”
