I ran into a similar situation when applying for my estonian passport using my Canadian birth certificate in Tallinn. The administrators were friendly, but I had to go to the Cdn. embassy/consulate, to get an official "signature" to back my authentic Canadian birth certificate because it did not have what they called, a proper apostille, which was there in plain view in my eyes. That wasn't all.....I had to then go the Foreign Ministry and have them officially back up, the back up from the Canadian consulate, before the passport office would accept it.

It cost me about $150 cdn to get the signatures to back up my official Canadian document. And I wonder why I did it all...