A full night at the passport office

One night time, The Press put itself in the shoes of travelers who, less than 48 working hours before leaving the country, decide to take drastic measures to have their passport renewed

William Theriault
The Press

You can see a lot of tired faces and a few resigned smiles around the Saint-Laurent passport office for several weeks. Here, hundreds of people often wait more than 40 hours on their camping chair, under a blanket or a raincoat, coffee or umbrella in hand, in the hope of obtaining their passport.

Nearly 100 people were waiting near the Service Canada office when The Press, Thursday evening around 9 p.m. Already, one could perceive a singular mixture of irritation and improvised camaraderie.

Note that this office is only open from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. All were therefore ready to spend the night there, adopting different strategies. Most travelers dozed off for a few hours sitting in their camping chairs, while some had organized a relay with their loved ones to split the waiting time. Others had brought a marquee to protect themselves from the weather, or went to sleep in their car while their spouse kept their place in line.

A mother of three, sitting next to our reporter, even left her chair between midnight and 6 a.m., paying a young man to wait for her.

On site, the scene is almost surreal: a crowd of people whose stress and fatigue are clearly visible, installed in a makeshift camp. All without toilets or fountains to drink water. Not only do people wait, but they do so at their own expense: food on the spot and days of work missed, sometimes without pay. “The passport is not a privilege, it’s a right,” lamented Axel Lellouche, one of them.

The overwhelming majority of people there had taken steps in recent months, only to be told that they had to go to a Service Canada office no more than 48 hours before their departure.

“I find it ridiculous. “It’s inconceivable that the organization is so poor. “A real banana republic. “They treat us like animals. These kinds of replies rang out throughout the night.

It’s simple: everyone criticizes the federal government for its lack of preparation and its inability to implement a solution. There is a general misunderstanding of the way in which requests are processed, even though the problem was “foreseeable”.

When did the people at the front of the queue arrive, during the night from Thursday to Friday? Wednesday, at different times in the afternoon or evening, they answer. These people finally received their passports on Friday. In all, the steps in person can therefore be spread over three days, while Service Canada asks to appear at most 48 hours before your trip.

Around midnight, sleep took over the small ecosystem of the passport office. In the early morning, most of the travelers were asleep, some were typing on their phones, others were talking in low voices. It was shortly before sunrise, around 5 a.m., that the line practically doubled in length. It was a few hundred meters long, spreading out in front of a dozen neighboring businesses.

chaotic awakening

Around 7 a.m. Friday morning, few were still asleep. The awakening gave rise to a mixture of confusion, anguish and frustration.

Outside, barely four or five employees. To ask a question, you have to wait in a different queue, without there being any indication. Fifty people whose names had been noted on a priority list around 2 p.m. Thursday, as the storms that rocked Montreal approached, also returned to the front of the line. In total, more than 250 travelers were present Friday morning.

“We are overwhelmed,” an employee came to announce at the entrance to the office, around 10 a.m. “It was 48 hours, but we won’t be able to serve everyone. So now it’s only 24 hours [avant le départ du Canada] today. »

Virginie Cléroux, who arrived around 8 p.m. Thursday evening, was to leave for Florida on Monday. She started the process in April, but was forced by Service Canada to renew the passports of her three children a few days before her departure. Despite her patience, she could not pass.

“I don’t know how you can get a passport right now. Like several dozen people behind her, she had to postpone her trip.