(Ottawa) Émile Bouchard, this teenager suffering from cancer, will finally be able to obtain his passport despite the strike by federal civil servants which has been going on for about ten days. The Department of Employment and Social Development contacted his parents last week after The Press had told his story.
“In short, less stress on the shoulders,” rejoiced the teenager’s mother, Anik Langlois. This one had launched a cry of the heart last week, fearing to have to cancel a trip in family to the United States because of the strike of the civil servants.
“Perhaps issuing passports is not an essential service, but this trip is for our family: recharging the batteries and reuniting,” she explained last week in a long email sent to The Press.
She had been planning to apply for a passport earlier this year for that July trip to Hawaii for a year, but their son’s diagnosis turned everything upside down. This is one of the only glimmers of hope for the 14-year-old teenager who has been fighting cancer for several months and whose treatments will soon end.
Emile has been hospitalized since January 16. Tumors compressed his spine and left him paraplegic. Against all expectations, he was able to take a few steps at the end of March.
The family of six’s travel plan had already been canceled once due to the pandemic and it has taken another turn since she was struck down by the disease.
A new passport crisis?
A Service Canada employee contacted the family to advise them that the passports of Émile and his sister, the only two that had expired, could be renewed out of compassion. The family will exceptionally be able to use the photos of Émile that have expired because they were taken more than six months ago.
During the strike, only requests for emergency or humanitarian situations are processed. The labor dispute, which began on April 19, raises the specter of a new passport crisis like the one last year.
Minister Karina Gould said Wednesday that the government has the capacity to deal with the applications which are piling up because they are fewer in number. Normally, Service Canada can receive 20,000 to 25,000 passport applications per day. He receives rather between 3000 and 4000 per day at the moment.
Ottawa considers its final offer “fair and reasonable”
The federal government says its new offer presented Friday to some 150,000 public service workers who have been on strike for 11 days now is “fair, competitive and reasonable” – and warns it is a “final offer”.
In a brief statement released on Saturday, the Treasury Board said its latest offer “addresses all remaining demands” from the Canada Public Service Agency (PSAC) and touches on issues such as telecommuting. , seniority and subcontracting – three points that stumped in the negotiations.
The federal government, however, did not go into the details of its new offer, reserving this information for the negotiation tables. The union confirmed on Friday that it had received the government’s new offer, but preferred not to comment further due to the resumption of discussions at the bargaining table.