Politicians are pointing the finger at Service Ontario employees for two bogus car liens on a woman's vehicle, which are supposedly held by fictional characters from "The Flintstones."
The mistake prevented the 75-year-old woman from selling her van to a dealership, because Fred and Pebbles Flintstone were listed as holding liens on the vehicle. Officials say the mix-up appears to have been a mistake at Service Ontario, where an internal test incorrectly used real vehicle identification numbers.
"Clearly we all knew that this was an act of gross incompetence," PC MPP Randy Hillier, who has championed the woman's cause, said in Ontario's Legislative Assembly on Wednesday. "Everyone knows that the Flintstones live on Rocky Road in Bedrock, U.S.A.," Hillier said, pausing as for laughter on both sides of the aisle. "And Fred drives a foot-mobile, not a 2006 Chev Uplander."
Tracy MacCharles, Ontario's minister of government and consumer services, said she will look into the problem to ensure that no other real vehicle ID numbers were used in the test.
"To my knowledge this has not happened before and I'm making sure that it doesn't happen again," MacCharles told the Assembly.
Hillier called the whole situation "Looney Tunes," and called for assurances that the next time this happens, it won't take nine months to fix.
Although to be fair, such a problem would have taken much longer to resolve in the Flintstones era, when Service Bedrock employed dinosaurs and pelicans, not humans.
With files from CTV Toronto
