(OTTAWA) Wait times for a host of government services, including passports, immigration documents and air travel, are falling, multiple federal ministers assured Monday.
Posted at 10:38 a.m.
However, “no one should congratulate us for doing our work” and there is still a lot to do, so that “we must not imagine that we are out of the woods”, added in the same breath the co-president of the Labor on Services to Canadians, Minister Marc Miller, at a press conference in Ottawa.
At his side and virtually, a series of ministers were very proud when discussing the current situation.
Wait times at the passport program call center have dropped from 108 minutes in April to 24 minutes in the past few days, Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould said. She attributes the decline to the addition of employees and technological changes to the telephone system.
The number of employees dedicated to the passport program has been increased by 62% over the past year, a triage system has been put in place and the simplified renewal method has been extended to adults who have had a passport issued within the last 15 years, she mentioned in particular.
The Minister of Transport, Omar Alghabra, then came to say that no less than 1,800 control officers have been hired since April and that they can now work during their training period.
Currently, 85% of passengers pass through security in less than 15 minutes. Things are moving in the right direction, but we know there are still challenges. This includes passengers sleeping on airport floors. This is unacceptable.
Omar Alghabra, Minister of Transport
In immigration too, the government has added staff: 1,250 new employees to increase processing capacity and reduce short-term application backlogs.
The number of work permits issued more than tripled between January and July compared to the same period a year earlier. And the number of new Canadian citizens welcomed rose from 35,000 to 116,000.
The Trudeau government created this special task force in late June to help it tackle significant backlogs in processing immigration applications and passport applications that have left Canadians frustrated.