These five new centers where it will now be possible to collect a passport are located in Pointe-Claire (in Quebec), Brampton (in Ontario), Whitby (in Ontario), Calgary Sundance (in Alberta) and Richmond (in British Columbia). . .

Service Canada staff work hard to obtain passports for Canadians during the passport application processMinister Gould said in the statement.

The vast majority of Service Canada offices specializing in passports now offer the collection service. The five new centers are added to the 29 offices that already made it possible to collect a pass. Adding this service [de retrait de passeport] these offices also reduce queues at other offices in larger citiesadded the statement.

Therefore, people who want to get a passport can do it in person at a center near where they live instead of doing it Driving hundreds of kilometers, for example between Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Gatineau or Montreal.

” We are currently attempting to reduce the backlog and bring service standards back to normal, and we are taking all necessary steps to enhance the Canadian experience and make our services more accessible. »

She insists that she will watch that Service Canada will continue to investigate and implement new solutions to improve services, including new technology to better inform Canadians of the status of their application.

As of April 1, 2022, Service Canada has issued 605,440 passports, including 48,481 during the week of July 11-17 alone. The federal agency mentions that its employees worked more than 7,000 hours of overtime during the same period.

Correct a difficult situation

Service Canada recognizes that delays in obtaining a passport have skyrocketed since April. Before the pandemic started, we were receiving 5,000 calls a day, and now we’re receiving more than 200,000 calls a dayconfirmed the spokesman for Service Canada last April.

An unforeseen number of applications and staff shortages significantly lengthened delays in obtaining passports. In June, many people had to stay outside in very long lines.

Service Canada then established a system of rendezvous tickets for citizens wishing to obtain their passport to travel abroad, but this way of doing things also had failures.

Service Canada then contacted a new system Triage to try to solve the problem of very long lines at federal offices to get a passport.

Regional vice president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, Yvon Barrière, criticized the federal government’s lack of preparation for the passport file.

According to him, the shortage of staff will take time, especially because 15 weeks will have to be spent on learning and supporting new employees in the field. Towards the end of September, beginning of October, we should have stabilized the situationdeclared Mr. Barrière on June 23.

One of the main problems is that most of the applications that Service Canada receives come from people who have never held a Canadian passport, Minister Gould said last week. She also estimated that passport renewals accounted for only 12% to 15% of applications made to Service Canada.

However, the federal government is considering developing an online application system for simple extensions. We didn’t have this before so we need to build it and make sure it worksthen pointed to Ms. Gould.