Kelowna woman wants her hyphen back

Kenna-Mae Mulligan is having what you might call an identity crisis.

For all of her 71 years, she’s been spelling her name with a hyphen in it just like her parents taught her to do when she was a little girl.

It’s never been a problem until she tried to get her driver’s licence and CareCard amalgamated.

“He said, ‘I can’t issue you a CareCard because your CareCard has a hyphen and your driver’s licence does not,’” Mulligan said.

Mulligan’s government-issued identification did not match, so she went to Vital Statistics to sort it out.

She says when the woman helping her pulled her name up on the computer, it had a hyphen in it but when she checked her birth certificate, it did not.

“So she came back and said, ‘I’m going to change it on the computer now so you won’t have that trouble,’” Mulligan said.

Once Vital Statistics removed the hyphen from her name in its records, she was told she’d be issued a new CareCard without a hyphen.

Mulligan says her voter registration does have a hyphen in it, and now she’s worried because her ID cards do not.

“Am I not going to be able to vote because I don’t have the hyphen in my name? Who knows? That’s coming up soon so I guess I’ll find out, won’t I?”

Mulligan says she’s been told by Vital Statistics that the only way to get the dash back is to apply to the government for a legal name change.

“I’m not paying $200 to put a hyphen back in my name that I know is my name.”

Mulligan is also worried this problem might follow her to her grave — that if they can’t get a proper death certificate issued, her family won’t be able to settle her affairs.