而這，只是龐大的加國政府服務部門的冰山一角。如果不是因為美國人要護照，或許護照部門的低效落後就不會迅速地暴露。那麼，其它部門呢？正如一封讀者來信所稱：Canadians in general have resigned themselves to accept any level of incompetence from our governments。我們對政府部門員工的不斷加薪無動於衷，我們對不知不覺中遠超通漲幅度的各種費用上漲麻木不悟，我們對生活中遇到的種種服務遲滯也逆來順受。因為，“we are Canadian!”
People frustrated by long wait lines outside Passport Canada offices have another option.
Some Service Canada offices, including those in Victoria and Nanaimo are operating as receiving agents for Passport Canada.
While Service Canada can't process applications, the receiving agent can review applications to ensure the documentation is complete and required accompanying material is there.The material will then be packaged and shipped to Passport Canada.
"It means a person who wants to apply for a passport can come to our office
and complete their application form or get their application form online; complete it, bring the application form
and all of their identification and their required pictures to the receiving agent," Service Canada spokesman Jeff Scott said.
"The receiving agent will check them over and then take care of forwarding the information to Passport Canada for processing of the passport."
It can still take 10 weeks plus shipping time for the application to be processed and a passport issued, he said.
With the opening of the Service Canada offices as receiving offices a person has three options when applying for a passport:
- Mailing in everything including applicable fees to Passport Canada
- Visiting a receiving agent, having the information checked and forwarded to Passport Canada
- Apply directly at a Passport Canada office.
If someone chooses the Service Canada receiving agent route, their identification will not be immediately returned but will have to be shipped with the application, Scott said.
Meanwhile, Passport Canada is attempting to reduce lineups in Victoria by issuing tickets to people standing in line outside the office and advising them to return with the ticket at a specific time.
Passport Canada spokesman Fabien Lengelle said the ticket system was started Monday and is getting good reviews.
Those people who can't be served on the same day are being offered the opportunity to leave their material in a drop
box so it can be processed after hours, he said.
Demand for passports remains high across the country.
In Victoria, queues outside the Canada Passport office have stretched around the corner at Fort and Douglas as demand surged across the country in the weeks surrounding the Jan. 23 deadline imposed by the United States for Canadians to have a valid passport when travelling there by air.
In a new advertising campaign, Service Canada boasts about how it gives Canadians "easy, one-stop access to Government of Canada programs and services."
And according to Passport Canada, the agency "is a highly motivated, service-oriented organization," that "operates much like a private sector enterprise."
But according to reality -- a reality everyone except politicians and government bureaucrats seem able to see -- Passport Canada would have gone bankrupt long ago were it really a private sector enterprise.
Indeed, anyone who has walked by -- or worse yet, tried to venture within -- a Passport Canada office has seen and heard the results of the agency's "high" motivation: Lengthy, almost interminable lines snaking around buildings, and horror stories of people who waited six or eight hours to renew their passports and were still turned away.
Those who are lucky enough finally to make it to the passport counter are told that it could take as long as 10 weeks to receive their new passports.
Passport Canada will tell you that the reason for the line-ups and the backlog is a sharp increase in the number of applications, thanks largely to the United States' Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which went into effect Jan. 23 and requires all Canadians travelling by air to the U.S. to present a valid passport.
But the policy didn't come out of the blue: Passport Canada knew about it in advance and could have ensured that it had sufficient people to process applications. Even if the agency was caught unawares, the policy has been in place for three months now -- plenty of time for Passport Canada to get its act together -- yet the line-ups are, if anything, worse than ever.
This is, to be kind, an unconscionable state of affairs, one that one would expect to see in the old Soviet Union, not in a modern democracy like Canada that brags about providing easy one-stop service. And while the American policy played a role in the current debacle, Passport Canada's own mismanagement is as much to blame as anything.
Had sufficient personnel been trained to process applications, passport office hours could have been extended into the evenings and on weekends to deal with the increased demands.
Further, demand could be cut in half simply by issuing passports that are good for 10 years instead of five, as is the case in the U.S. and Britain. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day mused about making such a change exactly one year ago, but needless to say, nothing has been done.
Then there is the odd attitude the government has toward the passport itself. While it expects other countries to accept the passport as proof of citizenship, it is not accepted as such by Passport Canada itself -- which suggests the government doesn't have faith in documents issued by its own agency.
So rather than permitting renewals on the basis of existing passports, applicants have to go through the entire process from scratch, and Passport Canada personnel similarly have to re-verify all the information they verified only five years ago.
This sounds like a make-work project, and it might well be since, as a special operating agency, Passport Canada funds its operations from the fees it charges, rather than from tax dollars.
But whatever else it is, it is fundamentally unacceptable. Canadians deserve competent service and efficient delivery of documents from their government; despite what the ads say, they're getting neither.
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