Karina Gould says these long waiting times are her top priority, but she can not say when things may return to normal.
The federal government says 72 percent of Canadians who apply for a passport will receive it anyway within 40 working days, while 96 percent of those who apply in person will receive their passport within 10 working days.
The government website now includes estimated waiting times for passport office visits, which are updated three times a day to help people plan.
On Monday afternoon you could wait four hours and 45 minutes in Ottawa, three hours in Toronto and six hours and 45 minutes in Vancouver.
Gould says her department is considering further changes, including moving the application process online.
She also says her department is working with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to determine if there is a way to issue passports to individuals as they obtain their citizenship instead of requiring a separate application. Both examples will take time to implement.
There are usually between two and five million passport applications per year in Canada. During the pandemic, only about 1.5 million passports were issued over a two-year period.
As a result, passport staff were given other jobs during this period, and the Canada Agency is now trying to relocate that work elsewhere.
And while Gould says that 2022 is well on its way to being at the top of the standard range, close to five million, “we have usually managed to manage this volume throughout the year, but we see the increase happening at the same time. time, which of course leads to large factions “.
Australian passport processing times are six weeks, according to Gould, while it takes 10 weeks to get a passport in the UK and 11 weeks to get one in the United States.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 13, 2022.
