A note to those who may have been born in Quebec, Canada. Since October of 2001 if you have a birth certificate that is dated before 1994, IT IS NO LONGER VALID. I went to renew my passport in January and ran into this situation and as I needed my passport in a hurry, first I had to pay for the service - an extra 30 dollars and as well was only able to get a passport that is good for 3 months as I needed to get a new birth certificate and this could not be done in a fast track way - There are forms available on line from the Quebec government site (sorry do not have that site) or the passport offices do have the forms - it takes about 4 weeks and costs 15 dollars for a small paper birth certificate which cannot be laminated - it notes right on the birth certificate that lamination invalidates the document.

This as you can imagine was quite a surprise but is due to the many ways people used be registered in Quebec - in fact no everyone had birth certificates - some had baptismal papers or just registrations of birth. So beware.

Carol Toronto, Canada