A word on the clutter of passports, starting with a personal anecdote. This spring, my son was going to join his mother abroad where she was staying for work.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The plane ticket was purchased…
I open the heir’s passport a few days before departure to check something and then, BOOM, the expiration date jumps out at me like mold on the surface of a pot of expired yogurt.
December 2020.
Said passport having not been used since the end of 2019, its expiry date had escaped us, unworthy father and mother that we are. It was in April. So I showed up at Complexe Guy-Favreau at 6:30 a.m. one morning (having heard of significant queues), to try to renew it. Impossible: I was missing too many documents. My son could not join his mother.
I don’t blame anyone but myself. The pandemic has suspended part of our lives, including travel. Normally, we would have noticed that our son’s passport was approaching its expiry date. We would have acted.
I submitted a new passport application for my son in May, in person at a Service Canada office. Luckily I went in person, as I had made mistakes in the paperwork. They helped me with patience and kindness. Estimated delivery date: June 30… No promises. At the time, rumors of a bottleneck in passport applications were beginning to swell.
I understand that the pandemic has changed a lot of things, that a lot of people — like me — have missed their passport renewal date because of the pandemic. But William Thériault, of The Pressrecently revealed that before the pandemic, Service Canada was handling more passport applications… with fewer employees1 !
Two things irritate me the most, apart from the problems with processing applications.
One, this lack of sense of urgency from the Minister responsible, Karina Gould: she looks like a robot asleep on Xanax, she who reads her press lines on autopilot2. We knew since the end of winter that a bottleneck was coming in the machine.
Two, the total lack of organization around Service Canada offices. People who camp, who have their doors closed in their faces without explanation, who can’t even find a human to answer basic questions… And this “miraculous” solution recently discovered by the federal machine: distributing numbered tickets in paper, like when you wait to order veal cutlets from the butcher!
The icing on the cake: brave Pinkerton agents were ordered to repel journalists near the Guy-Favreau Complex this week. Hide this clutter that cannot be seen…
This lack of organization worthy of a bad graduation ball organized by teenagers is distressing. It’s a silly lack of political leadership, it’s an administrative machine—deputy ministers, regional department heads—that doesn’t get pushed enough in the ass by its minister.
And it is typically federal!
The provincial government is not perfect, we know it is not. I already wrote it3 : No matter where you are in Canada, Ottawa is… far away. Federal, I mean.
At the federal level, deputies and ministers fly in first class at 10,000 meters above the head of the world, far from the concrete issues in the lives of citizens. The provincial deputies, they ride four-wheelers on the ground. Contact with reality, they feel it in their spine. Not the MPs: the sound of reality takes forever to reach their eardrums. It gives zombie ministers like Mme Gould.
Take Justin Trudeau: not a word about the mess of passports endorsed by his minister, radio silence, the PM is going to Rwanda…
Please note, I am not saying that bilateral relations with Rwanda are not important. I say that the algorithm of the federal machine is designed to be more efficient with regard to its embassy in Kigali than to manage a very down to earth logistics mess in its passport office in Laval.
What do we do in this country when administrations are overwhelmed, such as by a snowstorm in Toronto, a spring flood or a shortage of personnel in CHSLDs in Quebec?
We turn to the federal government to ask for help from the army…
Can our soldiers stamp passport applications?
I’m kidding, of course.
But unlike Karina Gould, I know I’m kidding.