Residents are describing the cutback in hours at Bonnyville Registries as inconvenient and frustrating.
Over the last few months, the local Service Alberta location has reduced their hours significantly. At one time, they were running off of three three-hour shifts per week, but are now up the three hours, five days per week.
Bonnyville Registries owner Luc Van Brabant confirmed the cutback is due to a shortage of staff.
“We hope to be up and back to regular hours first part of December,” he added.
Although Bonnyville Registries falls under Service Alberta, the business owner is responsible for hiring staff and setting business hours.
Bonnyville-Cold Lake MLA Scott Cyr has heard the brunt of it all. Residents have been approaching him about a solution.
“This interruption in service is due to a staffing problem the current agent is experiencing. The owner is working to address the interruption, and it’s important to recognize that many businesses and residents depend on the service. Driving to Cold Lake and St. Paul in order to get access to these services is just unacceptable. This needs to be resolved immediately,” he noted.
Residents agree.
“All this does is further push people to Cold Lake. Gas is much cheaper there, more selection for your shopping needs, and now the services are easier to use there too. People aren’t thinking twice about the drive now because it’s just more convenient to drive out to Cold Lake for a day and do everything while you’re there,” Sam Turzanski noted when the Nouvelle posed the question online.
While some are saying the reduced hours are the issue, others noted the business wasn’t open enough to begin with.
Nicole Gillis said on social media, “Their hours were already terrible to begin with. For something like registration and licenses, which are required by the government, not optional, there needs to be a way for people who can’t travel to other towns during business hours to access these services.” 
“I work Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. There are now literally no days or time that I can make it to the office. Might as well be closed completely,” Serena Critch expressed online.
Cyr explained the role a registries office plays in a community of this size.
According to the MLA, the office is responsible for “quite a remarkable number of services.”
That includes issuing and renewing passports, drivers’ licenses, marriage certificates, vehicle registration, and birth and death certificates, among others.
“As many people know, our registries are important portals to government services, and residents are right to be upset right now, as there’s a clear interruption to the service in our town,” said Cyr.
He has been pushing the province for a solution, and has been told that by December the location’s hours should be back to normal.
Until then, Cyr suggests laying off of Van Brabant as he does what he can to get back up to full staff.
“At this point, we need to give the business owner a bit of time. I think we can all reasonably expect any business is going to have staffing issues sometime in their time of business,” expressed Cyr. “If the business owner has committed to December to have his business fully staffed, I think we should give him that opportunity. If this goes beyond December, I suggest Bonnyville and area residents start writing into my office and we will start putting pressure on the government to resolve this.”
For Sheri Slobodain, who was looking to access the local registries corporate services, it was inconvenient when she was told that the person trained to fulfill her request was on medical leave, and no one else could help her.
“It is frustrating when you need something as simple a a copy of the bylaws for sport team (to affiliate with our provincial organization and I have a short deadline to meet some requirements) and you’re told to go to your local registries office. So you go, and ask and get a terrified look on the clerk’s face and then get told they can’t do that there. The sign on the window clearly says they do corporate registries, yet no one there can do it or even knows how to. They have to take course and the only person trained to do it is on medical leave. Maybe more than one person should be trained for this stuff, not everyone can get to another office out of town for basic stuff that is supposed to offered at registries offices,” she said on social media. “Not everyone has the time or money to go elsewhere for these services. This is a town, not a village, we should have access to these services easily.”
Cyr said he understands residents’ frustrations.
“If a Service Alberta provider feels this lapse of service is acceptable because they’re the only one in town, they’re clearly and sadly mistaken. The province may need to explore expanding the number of registries in Bonnyville if the level of service doesn’t improve,” he emphasized.
Anyone looking for an update on Cyr’s discussions with the province is encouraged to write him an email or give his office call, he added.
The Nouvelle reached out to Service Alberta for comment, but didn’t receive a response by the deadline.
