License plate sticker (part two)

So I made the phone call to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. You would kind of think that the people who answer their help line have probably heard it all, but this girl said she had never come across this problem before.

I knew ahead of time that the proper way to do this is to pay to have another emissions test done. That's between $72 and $100 depending on if I can find someone at the cheaper end of the scale around here. I have a passed test from last October, but that's not good enough as it has to be dated within one year of my current expiry date of February 2012.

Then with that in hand they will give me a two year sticker that expires February 2014 in exchange for $148. So, it will cost us minimum $220 for Ontario registration until February 2014. Of course the funny part is that the motorhome won't even be in Ontario for 99% of that time!

All of this allows us to legally keep the motorhome in Mexico until February 2014. We have a 10 year permit from Mexico that doesn't expire until 2017, so lots of time left on that.

However, I hate giving the government money because they don't spend it very wisely. So I wanted to explore the option of not paying out $220 for nothing. So I called them with the hypothetical problem that our motorhome is already in Mexico, and the sticker is due to expire in February of 2012. The girl said that they will allow you a six month extension without proof of passing the emissions test. I asked how many six month extensions were allowed, and she said two. So that would give us until February 2013, which isn't long enough. I asked what would happen after that and she said I was out of luck, that the plates would still be registered to me, but they would be expired until I got an Ontario emissions test.

So, it seems we are stuck paying out $220, essentially for nothing.

Someone asked about the safety of leaving Sherman in Mexico, but we would only be leaving him alone for a few weeks at a time while we fly back to Canada for a visit, and we have lots of friends in Mexico that we would trust him with. Besides, if Whiskey is still with us, only one of us would fly home at a time.

By the way, Whiskey appears to be totally back to the way she was before the rabies shot episode. So crossing our fingers it will be a while before we have to visit a vet again!