Chaos continues at Montreal passport offices
Posted June 20, 2022 11:27 am.
Last Updated June 20, 2022 6:46 pm.
If you’re travelling soon and haven’t renewed your passport yet, you may be out of luck.
After more than two years of pandemic-restricted travel, many Canadians are hoping to relieve their wanderlust this summer. But the surge in passport applications seems to have caught passport offices across the country by surprise.
Montreal is no exception. At a Laval passport office, hundreds of people have been stranded waiting in long lines to get their passports. With offices closed on weekends, many had to wait until Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. to enter the building.
One of those in line is Carmelina Vasquez Ramondo and her family. They’re looking to renew their passport in order to see their grandfather who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, before he beings to forget them.
“We’re going to New York to see my grandfather is not doing so well right now, so it kind of sucks that we had to postpone that a bit,” she explained. “It’s very frustrating that we haven’t gotten our passport yet.”
He travelled with family from Colombia to New York – a halfway point for them all.
She’s taken two days off work so far to wait in line.
“Originally we had come here on Tuesday, actually, and they refused us since we didn’t come 24 to 48 hours before. So then we came on Friday once again at 3:00 in the morning. We stayed there until 11:00, only to be refused once again because we weren’t leaving the day of. We happen to be leaving today in the morning. So we had to postpone because we couldn’t get our passports on Friday. So then God bless my dad. He came here today. Yeah, he came this morning at 3:00 in the morning and now it is 10:57,” said Ramondo.
“We’ve always been like face timing and like, you know, WhatsApp and everything. So it kind of sucks that we haven’t actually seen him in person, this is going to be the first time in a really long time. And, you know, it’s frustrating.”
The Ramondo family isn’t alone – everyone in line had their own story. A man already spent thousands to buy new plane tickets for himself and his family – twice.
“I was mad. I screamed a little. My wife, she was here with a three-month-old baby, another six-years-old. When I looked at my children, my daughter who was starting to cry, I was really angry. I sent my wife home, I said I will stay here for her,” as he’s now waiting the line alongside another traveler who needs to make his way back home for family matters.
“I have my father in my home county who is seriously ill. I must go see him. We’re going to spend the second night here, we won’t have a choice,” said another man in line.
Marie-Catherine Jean-Philippe, was already nervous to take her first plane ride – on her way to Cuba with family – but the stress and nervousness is mounting as she waits in line – hoping her vacation will be relaxing.
“I came here three times already, three times. And I was turned back. There are people that have been waiting here since Friday, more than 72 hours, sleeping outdoors in the cold, in the rain,” she explained.
RELATED: Vaccine mandates lift for Canadian travellers, federal workers
Laval’s long waiting lines
Because resources at Service Canada are already stretched, they’ve been told that only people who will be travelling in the next 24 to 48 hours and with proof of travel will be able to access the offices.
In the meantime, travellers have settled outside waiting, most of them there for 24 hours or more. Last week, city police requested people leave, threatening that they would start issuing tickets if they did not leave the premises.
The federal government says 72 per cent of Canadians who apply for a passport in any manner will get it within 40 business days, while 96 per cent of people who submit their application in person will get their passport within 10 business days.
#WATCH: Lineups continue at passport offices – people in Laval, north of Montreal, camping out since Saturday, waiting for Monday’s opening hours.
READ: https://t.co/UKpj9drs2x pic.twitter.com/R0K2cXgCHw
— CityNews Montreal (@CityNewsMTL) June 20, 2022
Karina Gould, Federal Minister of Children, Families and Social Development, was asked about passport delays on Monday at an unrelated press conference and said that, “right now the challenge really is with regards to volume. Canadians have for the past two years stayed home, many people’s passports either expired or a lot of people who didn’t have passports before, so what we’re experiencing right now is a kind of a two-year backlog.
“Only 15 per cent are actually passport renewals and 85 per cent are for new passports, and processing is much more complex. And many of these passports are for children and that’s even more complex,” added Gould.
“Since January we’ve hired an additional 600 folks at passport [offices] to be able to process more quickly, we’re in the process of hiring an additional 600 and we’re reallocating internally.”
For some, they can’t afford to wait any longer. “We’re hopefully getting the passport today,” said Ramondo.
#WATCH: "We're hopefully getting the passport today," says Carmelina Vasquez Ramondo, hoping to make it to New York soon, to visit her family who travelled there from Colombia – which includes her grandfather who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. pic.twitter.com/VRK0C8DMyP
— CityNews Montreal (@CityNewsMTL) June 20, 2022
RELATED: Montrealers wait hours in line to get passports renewed
Service Canada is expecting to receive up to 4.3 million passport applications in this fiscal year.
This, while the vaccine mandates in Canada for domestic and international travel have temporarily come to an end as well as of Monday.
“I’m going to Tunisia. And actually, I’m waiting for my children’s passports because mine is correct. So I’m not leaving without them,” a woman standing in line told CityNews.
Estimated wait times posted
The government’s website now includes estimated wait times for visits to passport offices, updated three times a day, to help people plan.
There are typically between two million and five million passport applications per year in Canada. During the pandemic, only about 1.5 million passports were issued over two years.
RELATED: Federal government now posting passport wait times online as long lineups continue
