Faulty passport printers

The patience of hundreds of people waiting to receive their passports was put to the test again on Tuesday at Complexe Guy-Favreau. Shortly after the opening of the offices, an employee demanded that everyone leave the premises: the passport printers were no longer working. Last Thursday and Friday, it was in Saint-Laurent that people were told that only one printer was functional.

Emilie Bilodeau
The Press

“At 8:20 a.m., we were told that the printers weren’t working and that we all had to leave. But no one wanted to leave, ”says Marik Audet, who had been in line since 4 a.m. the day before.

The tension escalated. Some people cried out in protest, others argued more calmly with the Service Canada representative. It was finally another employee who asked people to keep their place in the queue until we find a solution.

“People were angry, but no one hit each other and there was no jostling,” says Ms.^me Audet. “They finally called the first 40 people and I was the 38^e “, she continues in a mixture of laughter and tears. In the middle of the afternoon, she got her hands on her passport and that of her two children. They were able to take their flight, at 10:35 p.m., to France.

Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould confirmed late Tuesday evening that the issue of faulty printers was resolved during the day. “What I understand is that it’s already settled. There are also systems in place to ensure passports could be printed in other locations,” she explained.

Four days and… nights

In the borough of Saint-Laurent, Yndira Parra Malave worked hard for four and a half days – outside – to obtain the precious document allowing her to travel with her husband and children. By dint of waiting, she forged ties with four families who decided to keep the place each in turn for two hours.

« Vendredi vers 16 h, ils [des employés] told us: “It’s over, no one is going to come in because the printer is broken. We can’t do anything, you wait here for nothing, come back tomorrow, ”says M^me Parra Malave.

She and her friends still decided to stay. They only received their passports on Monday afternoon.

A “predictable” wave

For Francis Côté, general manager of Voyages Objectif Terre, who has worked in the industry for more than 24 years, this passport crisis was “completely predictable”.

A government decree, published on May 26, 2021, confirms that Passport Canada has limited the issuance of documents for more than 15 months. “Since March 18, 2020, to support containment efforts and protect staff, the Passport Program has reduced in-Canada application processing operations to only process reasons warranting urgent travel,” the executive order reads. .

“It was pretty clear that the day the restrictions were lifted, the requests were going to explode,” notes Mr. Côté.

“They purposely restricted the issuance of passports to discourage people from traveling and that’s okay because the pandemic demanded it. But if there were fewer renewals in 2020 and 2021, senior officials should have seen the wave coming. Otherwise, it’s a bit of incompetence, ”adds the man who flew to Costa Rica on Tuesday evening with 23 high school students. One of them received his passport only on Monday.

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) confirms that 363,000 passports were issued between 1^er April 2020 and March 31, 2021. In comparison, 1,273,000 passports were produced for the same period of 2021 to 2022.

With the collaboration of Mylène Crête, The Press