With prolonged delays for Canadians searching 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. But, travellers say they’re nonetheless dealing with lengthy wait occasions.
The company introduced on Tuesday that because the week of Could 9, all passport service counters that had been closed resulting from COVID-19 have been reopened, marking a 40 per cent enhance in capability.
“Capability in ready rooms has additionally been considerably expanded, and Service Canada has additionally taken further measures to simplify and expedite passport processing,” the company stated in a information launch.
Moreover, Service Canada stated it had employed 600 new workers for processing of passport functions and opened up extra devoted passport counters at over 300 centres.
However for a lot of travellers, these new measures have introduced little reduction to the irritating delays.
Matheus Caminha is one the Canadians who had resorted to tenting exterior a Service Canada workplace with the intention to get a brand new passport for his new child daughter forward of their flight on Saturday. He had been ready exterior 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 will see, (these measures) did not change a lot. I do not suppose there's extra individuals working as we speak. Yesterday, they stated that there'll solely be two individuals working and gave the excuse that individuals known as in sick,” he informed CTVNews.ca over the cellphone on Thursday morning whereas he was nonetheless ready in line.
He had initially despatched his daughter’s software by mail initially of March, two months forward of their journey overseas in Could. However 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 software in individual.
“I assumed two months can be sufficient, however it wasn’t the case,” he stated.
On the opposite facet of the counter, the union representing passport workers at Service Canada says it’s additionally feeling the frustration as lengthy delays create a “hostile working atmosphere” for employees.
“Lengthy traces and incorrect details about wait occasions is irritating purchasers and has the potential to create a harmful work atmosphere for Service Canada workers,” stated Kevin King, nationwide president of the Union of Nationwide Staff, in a information launch on Thursday. “We anticipate to see a concrete plan from the federal government to alleviate wait occasions and to guard the protection of staff and purchasers throughout this unprecedented interval.”
Between April 2020 and March 2021, Service Canada says it issued 363,000 passports. However now that Canada and different international locations 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 groups are presently responding to a big surge in demand for passports, working laborious to keep up our service requirements and get Canadians the paperwork they should journey,” Lori MacDonald, chief working officer of Service Canada, stated in an announcement on-line. “We thank Canadians for his or her endurance throughout this time, and proceed to encourage them to plan forward and apply early in the event that they want passport companies.”
Caminha stated the federal authorities should have been higher ready for the surge in functions.
“I believe it is the general feedback right here is that they knew that they had been going to open borders and that individuals would begin to plan to journey. It’s positively a scarcity of planning,” he stated.
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