Travelers are afraid of not getting their passports in time despite spending two nights outside, in the impressive line of a federal office in Montreal which had to call the police to restore calm to applicants overwhelmed by deadlines.
The fear of missing his first vacation abroad in two years can be guessed on the faces of citizens who are lining up to obtain a passport at the Saint-Laurent office in Montreal on Wednesday afternoon. Far from improving, the delays in obtaining a passport are reaching new records, going so far as to cause outbursts of frustration.
The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) confirms that it was called around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday to calm things down during a “conflict” at the service point located on Marcel-Laurin Boulevard. People in the queue would have become aggressive, unhappy with the endless wait.
“A suspect would have pushed the security guard out of dissatisfaction, but there were no injuries, and no one filed a complaint,” said SPVM spokeswoman Mariane Allaire Morin.
This altercation is not the only one to have occurred. Some people tried to overtake others in the queue, raising the ire of other future travelers. Others have used a ploy by sending a single person to wait, later joined by five or six of his acquaintances in the last moments of waiting. Once again, these freebies did not fail to arouse the passions of already exasperated citizens.
“If there are 400 people in line at 4 a.m., you sneak out. It’s so chaotic. The world is desperate, ”says a witness to this scene at the To have to shrugging the shoulders.
Some have even sniffed out a bargain by offering to stand in line for others for $30 to $50 an hour, according to ads posted online.
After arguing before Parliament on Monday that “people can present themselves [au bureau des passeports] 45 days before travelling,” Federal Minister Karine Gould, responsible for managing passports, qualified her assertion the following day. “Each office has to manage the situation they have, and our priority is to ensure that people do not lose their flight, that they can complete their trip,” she said.
She still said she was “surprised” that passport offices, including that of Saint-Laurent, require proof of travel within 48 hours to serve citizens who come there, as revealed The duty, and contradicts information available on the web.
Its department, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), nevertheless admitted in an email that in “some places, the passport service was limited to customers with proof of travel within 48 hours” in order to manage the crowds of renewal applicants.
The St. Laurent passport office website still listed the wait there as 3:45 a.m. Wednesday. It was rather necessary to count 30 hours of waiting, according to the estimates of witnesses on the spot. Nearly 200 people were preparing to spend the night outside this office on Wednesday evening.
Discretionary power
Mathieu Tremblay arrived Tuesday evening in front of the offices of Passport Canada. Met by The duty the following evening, he was preparing to spend a second night there in order to obtain his passport on Thursday morning. “And all that for three weeks of travel. We focus on the three weeks! »
Witness to the comings and goings of the visibly overwhelmed local manager, he ensures that she applies a directive of “discretionary power”.
“Priority management is a bit haphazard. Every day it’s like, “what are we improvising today?” She wants to give people information, but by giving information that changes all the time, sometimes 24 hours, sometimes 48 hours, sometimes giving priority to this or that type of file, that leads people to invent scenarios. You create hopes, that’s what’s frustrating. »
When the doors of the Saint-Laurent passport office close on Wednesday, around 3:30 p.m., a crowd of travelers worried about missing their flight assails the manager on duty. Some claim to have applied as early as January or February.
“It does not provide,” she drops, before explaining that about fifteen agents are responsible for processing the files, which each take about an hour to close. The manager has no answer other than the invitation to patience. “You have the choice to travel or not to travel. It is a privilege. »
Penalized for getting ahead of the game
While planning to renew her passport, Andrée-Anne Nadeau, a resident of Boucherville, was assigned an appointment by Service Canada at the offices on René-Lévesque Boulevard… in Chandler, Gaspésie.
“It shows that there are not very attentive employees. It’s not a small mistake, ”she testifies. The passport of her last child, whose application was finally able to be filed in due form in Montreal, was to be sent to her before April 29. More than 45 days later, she still has not received it.
She was counting on her mother on Wednesday to line up at the Complexe Guy-Favreau service point. A final attempt to obtain his document before the family trip, which leaves very early on Friday, which was finally successful.
“What I find really frustrating is the management of priorities, of who is going to take priority. Why us, they did not serve us earlier, to take all the last minute requests? she laments.