Birth certificate 'typo' causes B.C. man big headaches

It's hard to imagine anyone having to fight the government over the correct spelling of their name.

But that's exactly what's happening to Jack MacKay. Or, as his government issued I.D. would have you believe, it's happening to Jack Mac Kay.

And that small space in his surname is causing some big problems.

When MacKay applied for a replacement birth certificate through Manitoba's Vital Statistics agency a couple of years ago, the document came back with a space between “Mac” and “Kay.”

Now everything from his driver's licence to his reissued marriage certificate has his last name spelled as two words.

“When they issued my licence it clearly shows a two-name surname, and I said, ‘That's not the correct spelling of my name.' And they said ‘that's how it's spelled on your birth certificate,'” MacKay, who now lives in Surrey, B.C., told CTV Winnipeg on Thursday. “I was referred to the director. The director looked at the document and said ‘it's spelled correctly'… Basically I was sitting there arguing with someone about the correct spelling of my name.”

And while his reissued marriage certificate was addressed to “Jack MacKay,” the actual certificate says his wife Susan is married to a “Jack Mac Kay.”

And that has MacKay's wife worried.

"There are legal ramifications to what's going on," she told CTV Winnipeg. "What if he should pass away and his insurance is in ‘MacKay,' but they're saying he's ‘Mac Kay.' What happens to that money?"

The issue stems from what's on MacKay's original birth certificate. A close look shows that "Mac" and "Kay" appears as two separate words.

The Manitoba government says this can all be cleared up if MacKay's mother, who wrote his name on the original birth certificate, signs another document admitting she made a mistake.

"That's not right, is it? It doesn't make sense to have it two words," Eileen Desrochers, MacKay's mother, told CTV Winnipeg. "I don't know why they won't correct it and be done with it?"

MacKay says he is refusing to let his mother sign any document, because he says it's the government that made the mistake.

A Winnipeg estate lawyer says having two separate name won't likely pose any problems for a will or a life insurance policy, provided that the benefactor can prove that both spellings were in fact the same person.

With a report from CTV Winnipeg and The Canadian Press

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  For 61 years, Jack MacKay has spelled his name as one word. But, a few years ago, when the Surrey B.C. resident applied for a replacement birth certificate through the Manitoba’s Vital Statistics agency, he noticed there was a small space between “Mac” and “Kay.” The misspelling has now affected documents such as a replacement marriage certificate and his current B.C. driver’s licence.