Passport delays persist even as Service Canada ups staffing & More News Here

With prolonged delays for Canadians looking for to get a brand new or renewed passport, Service Canada says it’s upped staffing at passport service counters to expedite processing forward of the summer season journey season. Yet, travellers say they’re nonetheless going through lengthy wait instances.

The company introduced on Tuesday that because the week of May 9, all passport service counters that had been closed as a consequence of COVID-19 have been reopened, marking a 40 per cent enhance in capability.

“Capacity in waiting rooms has also been significantly expanded, and Service Canada has also taken additional measures to simplify and expedite passport processing,” the company stated in a information launch.

Additionally, Service Canada stated it had employed 600 new staff for processing of passport functions and opened up extra devoted passport counters at over 300 centres.

But for a lot of travellers, these new measures have introduced little aid to the irritating delays.

Matheus Caminha is one the Canadians who had resorted to tenting outdoors a Service Canada workplace in an effort to get a brand new passport for his new child daughter forward of their flight on Saturday. He had been ready outdoors the Service Canada workplace in Surrey, B.C. since midnight on Wednesday in a line that stretches across the constructing and throughout the parking zone, as much as the sidewalk.

“From what we can see, (these measures) didn’t change much. I don’t think there’s more people working today. Yesterday, they said that there will only be two people working and gave the excuse that people called in sick,” he instructed CTVNews.ca over the cellphone on Thursday morning whereas he was nonetheless ready in line.

He had initially despatched his daughter’s utility by mail at first of March, two months forward of their journey overseas in May. But his daughter’s passport couldn’t be processed in time, which meant that he needed to push their journey again and attempt to ship an expedited utility in individual.

“I thought two months would be enough, but it wasn’t the case,” he stated.

On the opposite aspect of the counter, the union representing passport employees at Service Canada says it’s additionally feeling the frustration as lengthy delays create a “hostile working environment” for workers.

“Long lines and incorrect information about wait times is frustrating clients and has the potential to create a dangerous work environment for Service Canada staff,” stated Kevin King, nationwide president of the Union of National Employees, in a information launch on Thursday. “We expect to see a concrete plan from the government to alleviate wait times and to protect the safety of workers and clients during this unprecedented period.”

Between April 2020 and March 2021, Service Canada says it issued 363,000 passports. But now that Canada and different nations have eased pandemic journey restrictions, the interval of April 2021 to March 2022 noticed greater than 1,273,000 passports issued. April 2022 alone noticed 261,000 passport functions, in comparison with simply 69,000 the identical final 12 months.

“Our teams are currently responding to a significant surge in demand for passports, working hard to maintain our service standards and get Canadians the documents they need to travel,” Lori MacDonald, chief working officer of Service Canada, stated in an announcement on-line. “We thank Canadians for their patience during this time, and continue to encourage them to plan ahead and apply early if they need passport services.”

Caminha stated the federal authorities should have been higher ready for the surge in functions.

“I think it’s the overall comments here is that they knew that they were going to open borders and that people would start to plan to travel. It’s definitely a lack of planning,” he stated.

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