Fed aims to clean up passport backlog in next ‘4 to 6 weeks’: Minister Globalnews.ca

Ottawa is admitting it has underestimated demand for passports amid the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, and aims to clear the backlog by the end of the summer.

Speaking in Vancouver on Monday, Karina Gould, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, described the long wait and uncertainty that Canadians seeking travel documents have faced for months as “completely unacceptable.”

“We want people to get their passports before they apply and we are working on that in the next four to six weeks,” he said.

Throughout the spring and early summer, Canadians seeking to renew their passports have encountered long, sometimes multi-day lines at Service Canada offices. Many who have mailed in their documents have reported poor communication and a lack of clarity about when their documents will arrive.

In both cases, some applicants have faced processing times of months, sometimes threatening scheduled flights or planned travel.

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Triage schemes are in effect to address passport backlog delays

On Monday, Gould said the federal government had anticipated an uptick in demand when restrictions were eased, but not the scale of applications or the way people chose to apply.

Before COVID-19, she said 80 per cent of people applied for passports in person, of which 20 per cent applied by mail. This year, that distribution flipped, she said.

“What we didn’t anticipate was the level of bounce we were going to get,” she said.

“Quite frankly the mail system didn’t have enough staff to deal with it. It’s something we’re doing right now.”

Between April and June this year, Canadians submitted more than 808,000 passport applications, 166,000 more than during the same period in 2019.

It increased the volume of applications for this fiscal year from 2.4 million last year to 4.3 million, and left federal public servants nearly 6,000 hours of overtime a week.

Ottawa has hired 600 additional Passport employees, but only 100 of them have completed the training, which takes 12 to 15 weeks.

The remaining workers should return to work within the next month, Gold said.

Despite the uncertainty and extreme delays for some, Gould said most Canadians are receiving their passports on time. She said those who are approaching their travel dates without documentation should visit the Service Canada site, where priority is being given to those in urgent need.