MANITOWANING—The Service Ontario outlet in Manitowaning is closing and the space where photos and documents were taken for licence and registration will soon be filled with the cats and kittens of the rescue operation Fixing our Felines.

Customers attending the Service Ontario outlet run by Collen Caselton are used to seeing a variety of her furry charges sharing space with the camera and counter, soon there will be an expanded play area for the felines.

Ms. Caselton will be closing the office on June 19, finally calling it quits after a long series of changes that finally broke the camel’s back even though her contract does not expire until February. The final straw was when they informed her she would be responsible for testing seniors.

“That was the deal breaker for me,” she said. “That was the final straw because they used to hire somebody and they would run these groups that would refresh the seniors’ memories (on the rules of the road) and then test them.” That testing of seniors for their driver’s licence was previously accomplished in the NEMI Recreation Centre. “Now they expect me to test their eyes and then decide if they need to go for further testing,” she said. “I just can’t do that. Before they would have someone refresh their knowledge, now seniors must watch a video online.”

The lack of hands-on in-person training for her was also a huge issue. “When they brought us online with the health cards we went to Sudbury and we had a week’s worth of training to learn how to do the health cards,” she said. “This time it is just emails.” That, she notes, is simply not enough for her to be comfortable.

Ms. Caselton will have just one day to wrap up the equipment and materials following the closure. “Once I am no longer an employee, I can’t have access to driver’s personal information,” she said.

The ever-changing rules and regulations are also a factor in her decision to step away from the contract, noting that people would often come in saying they were told they need something that Ms. Caselton was not aware of and would have to scramble to figure out.

With each change, the decision to quit the job became that much easier. She noted that the staff at the Service Ontario office in Espanola are unionized employees, with benefits and a steady paycheque, while the expectations of the contract workers keep rising faster than the renumeration.