TORONTO – Infinitive waiting to renew passports, endless queues at the airport, suddenly canceled flights: the conditions are all there for a summer to … forget. Those who wanted to return to travel, after two years of “confinement”, are in fact dealing with the harsh reality of the total disorganization of the Canadian bureaucracy.
Let’s start with passports: to have all the necessary documents to travel, thousands of Canadians in recent weeks have tried to renew their passports that expired or are close to expiring. An odissey: the times of “elaboration” turned out to be biblical, because the Service Canada centers found themselves under siege due to the amount of paperwork to be disposed of, all together. The question is: was it not foreseeable that, with the relaxation of the restrictions, people would resume traveling and, therefore, thousands of people would have to renew their passports? The answer, evidently, is “no” for the Canadian bureaucracy that tried to remedy, increasing the number of employees and branches for the disposal of files for passport renewals. Too late. Canadians have been forced to give up their travels or, at best, to postpone them until a later date (i.e. when the passport is ready).
According to data from Service Canada, between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, 363,000 passports were issued for “urgent travel”. Then, however, “the world has reopened” and, as it was – in our opinion – obvious, the demand has skyrocketed. Nearly 1.3 million passports were issued between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. Since last April, more than 317,000 passports have been delivered and the federal forecast for 2022-2023 is between 3.6 million and 4.3 million applications.
Based on last week’s projections, 75% of Canadians applying for a passport receive one within 40 business days, while 96% of those applying in person at a specialized site receive their passport within 10 business days, according to as reported by a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada, even if the testimonies of numerous Canadians, reported by various media, seem to disprove this information.
However, it did not go better for those who managed to get their passports renewed. Yes, because there is another problem: the airport. Toronto’s Pearson has been in total chaos for weeks. “Staff shortages”, the top management of the airport said, but the maintenance of anti-Covid restrictions (which have fallen in almost all other airports in the world) is also doing its part. The result is that the queues to enter / exit are kilometers long, the inconveniences countless and the protests as well: just “take a ride” on social networks to notice it. And the image that comes out of it, for Canada, is very bad. “The worst place on earth” is the description of the Toronto’s Airport by the hockey star Ryan Whitney who, stuck at the Pearson, posted a video on Twitter that received 2 million views. World disgrace for Toronto.
Finally, the cancellations: Air Canada canceled about 360 flights to Pearson in the first seven days of June – almost 10% of those scheduled – “due to a shortage of staff and an increase in passengers”, but Monette Pasher, head of Canada’s Airports Council, made it clear that the government should eliminate “bottlenecks” by removing health checks and anti-Covid restrictions, including vaccine requirements for passengers and employees and random testing for passengers, which they take time to process and administer.
For his part, Omar Alghabra, Federal Minister of Transport, said that the government has “already” taken some measures (such as the addition of 400 security control agents), announcing “other steps” without adding anything else. But yes, what’s the hurry? Anyway he – the Minister – does not wait in line …
At the top, one of the many photos of Toronto’s Pearson Airport posted on social media in these days: RuthB posted this on June 5 on Twitter
