Montreal woman may miss son's wedding due to error on birth certificate

Judith Ann Gallan feels like she doesn’t exist anymore.

A mistake on the 63-year-old Montrealer’s Quebec birth certificate is making her question her own identity.

She fears that this will prevent her from attending her son’s wedding in Jamaica, which will take place in December.

"I need a passport by April 1, 2023, because the agency that has booked the trip needs our passport numbers by April 1," says Gallan.

To get her passport, which she has never needed before, she must acquire a Quebec-issued birth certificate.

According to the Government of Canada’s general passport application for Canadians, “only official birth documents issued by the vital statistics office in one’s province or territory of birth in Canada are accepted.”

But Gallan had always used her baptism certificate from the Diocese of New Carlisle, where she was born.

She applied for a Quebec birth certificate, and upon receiving it, she immediately noticed the spelling mistake in both her and her father’s last names.

The Gallan family name had been mistaken for Gallon.

"The AN was an ON, and it didn’t match my Medicare card," she said.

Nor did it match any of her other government documents, which Judith Ann Gallan had been using for the past 63 years.

"Including my kids’ birth certificates, eligibility slips from Quebec, and my T4 slips. Everything is in AN," explains Gallan.

Since receiving her faulty birth certificate on February 8, she has sent it back and made a photocopy of it.

Hoping to get the ball rolling, Gallan made numerous phone calls to the director of civil status and has even sent letters.

But so far, Gallan says they’re not helping her with her case.

"I don’t know what to do now because I feel like I have nothing. I have nothing. If I can’t have my AN, I have nothing."

Officials from the director of civil status have told her that her only alternative to fixing this problem is to take the legal route.

"I don't have the money to pay to get my name changed when it is my name," says Gallan.

The director of civil status did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CTV News on Thursday.