Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Minister Gould, there are many stories in the media lately of Canadians waiting long hours in massive lineups for passport services. Service Canada is currently experiencing what it calls an “unprecedented surge” in passport applications, receiving more than 200,000 calls per day for passport requests, about 40 times higher than the average daily requests it received before the pandemic.

Minister, yesterday in the other place you said that you’ve hired 500 additional passport officers. Are these new staff working today or are they in the process of being hired? Where are they located? Are they on-site in Service Canada locations or working from home?

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Hon. Karina Gould, P.C., M.P., Minister of Families, Children and Social Development: Thank you, Senator Martin. It’s a really excellent question. It’s a combination. Some of them will be in passport processing centres, for example in Mississauga and Gatineau where the majority of mailed-in passports are processed. Some of them will be in passport offices in the 35 locations across the country. Some of them will be in the 303 Service Canada centres that can now receive passports.

There is certainly an unprecedented surge in demand as Canadians are beginning to travel again after the pandemic and have realized that throughout that time their passport has expired. We do encourage Canadians that if travel is urgent — that’s 25 days or less — go to a passport office. If it’s not urgent — that means 25 days or more — please go to one of the 303 Service Canada centres across the country. They can do the intake in person.

I also want to assure you and all Canadians that we are exploring every option to make this smoother because we know this is a difficult and frustrating experience. We’re working really hard at Service Canada to make sure we can provide a smoother service to Canadians.

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