The extraordinary delays at passport offices across the country last year is being blamed on mismanagement.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter , an internal federal memo said half of employees were sent to work from home and 20% quit during the height of the backlog.
“As Canadians started to apply for passports, operations at both Service Canada centres and passport processing centres remained constrained with staff limited to 30-50% capacity on site,” said the Feb. 10 memo, titled Processing Passports And Service Delivery . “A 19.9% departure rate was also seen for the same period for passport employees,” it added.
Canadians were waiting up to six hours at Service Canada offices due to slow processing of passport applications. Those who applied by mail were told to wait three months or more for a reply.
“Processing times remain long due to the sheer volumes of applications,” then-Social Development Minister Karina Gould testified May 30, 2022 at the Commons human resources committee.
As travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted last year, the federal government said it was overwhelmed by unusually high numbers of passport applications.
However, a June 23, 2022 briefing note said it knew for a year that it should prepare for an increased interest in travel.
“In anticipation of increased volumes Service Canada began implementing a staffing plan,” said the note, Passport Productivity And Staffing Measures .
But the latest memo laid blame on management for not being prepared.
“High application volumes combined with staff limitation due to the health and safety measures in place in the spring of 2022 led to a build-up of inventory that exceeded our capacity to process applications,” staff wrote in Processing Passports And Service Delivery .
“Applications were submitted in an unprecedented proportion by mail, nearly double the pre-pandemic proportion,” the memo added. “Mail applications are approximately 40% less efficient to process compared to applications submitted in person.”
Source: Toronto Sun
