ON ITS WEBSITE, ServiceOntario, claims it is committed “to providing you with fast, friendly and easy access to Ontario government information and services – online, in person, at kiosks and by phone.”

But in Orangeville, at least, the reality is that this new agency is the last place anyone should go to seek a needed service.

The existing tiny office in an East Broadway strip mall once housed only Land Registry but now is supposedly equipped to provide health card registration, birth, marriage and death certificates, driver and vehicle licensing, business registration, fishing and hunting licences and address changes.

As a result, the five- or 10-minute waits to get your driver’s licence renewed in the old site across the street now routinely takes one to two hours.

A visit to the place shortly before noon Tuesday showed at least 20 would-be customers having to stand, for lack of seating.

The site has no “help” or “information” desk, let alone a staffer, but in anticipation of long lineups has a number-dispensing machine that was currently at 83. One of the standees advised that they had just then reached 50, indicating a newcomer faced a two-hour wait.

The office is no doubt still adequate to handle Land Registry, but is grossly inadequate to provide the long list of services supposedly available for a trading area with a population of about 40,000.

Might we suggest a doubling of staff, a quadrupling of space and a move to the little used, former Sobeys store on West Broadway?