I have to laugh, because this literally would not have happened had I not have been applying for a permit that was being rejected by the person that we were going through and I did the file myself. The clerk I spoke was quite a bounty of new information.
Got to tell you it's not a silver bullet. It's not necessarily easy. There's still the usual lift but, for someone that is perhaps in between jobs they're looking for work. This is something I would investigate if I was you.