(Ottawa) The government is trying to convince some 200 temporary employees of the Canada Revenue Agency to help it deal with the passport crisis. The request has been sent, but it is not known how many will respond to the call.
Posted at 2:31 p.m.
These 200 people would work in Service Canada offices and passport processing centers across the country, said a source in the office of Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould.
These Canada Revenue Agency employees find themselves out of work after tax time and the government hopes they will agree to work for Service Canada. They would be added to the 600 employees already hired by the government to process the many passport applications and the 600 others who need to be hired.
Photo Justin Tang, archives The Canadian Press
“I must tell you that we really have to do better,” reacted the Minister of National Revenue, Diane Lebouthillier before the cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.
“I must tell you that we really have to do better,” reacted the Minister of National Revenue, Diane Lebouthillier before the cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.
“The request has already been made to us and I can tell you that there are resources that have been loaned to help Passport Canada,” she added. But you also have to understand that during this period, you also had to deal with the tax season, which went very well, by the way. »
The government is grappling with a significant number of passport applications to process with the lifting of health restrictions. People line up in front of Service Canada offices and sometimes spend the night there trying to renew their passport in extremis before leaving on their trip. Some have to cancel or postpone their departure altogether because they cannot obtain the precious document.
Service Canada employees will be working on the statutory holidays of June 24 and July 1er July to renew pending passports, but the offices will not be open to the general public, contrary to what the minister’s parliamentary secretary Karina Gould suggested on Monday.
The government wants to avoid long queues in front of the offices which will only be open during these two long weekends for urgent appointments on a case-by-case basis and for the printing of passports.
To hope to get an appointment, citizens must line up in front of Service Canada offices.
Further details will follow.