I spent my entire Monday morning standing in line at the Victoria passport office.
I arrived at 5:30 a.m. and stood outside until the security in the Bay Centre opened the doors to let people in at 6 a.m. Then, we lined up in front of Service sa国际传媒’s passport office until they opened at 8:30 a.m. and we were herded like cattle to designated lineups depending on what service we required.
I am booked to go on a cruise to Alaska, leaving Victoria on June 17. This cruise was originally booked for May 2020, then August 2020, then June 2021 and finally June 2022 — cancelled and rebooked three times, all due to COVID.
Since the time of booking the first cruise three years ago, my name has changed. I still had a valid passport in my old name, but thought it best to have my passport updated so it matched the name on my vaccine passport issued by the federal government.
I mailed my passport application into the federal office in Ontario on April 3. A few weeks later, I learned of the backlog at the passport office.
I called the 1-800 passport service line and the agent told me they had received my application and I “should have my passport by end of May”. She said that if I didn’t have it by June 3, to call them back and they would “transfer my file” to the Victoria office and it would be printed there and I could pick up in Victoria.
This all sounded wonderful, until I realized that no one can get through to the toll-free Passport Office number anymore. I tried dozens of times for the last two weeks, at different times of the day, and only got a message: “Due to high call volumes, we are not answering calls. Try again later.”
How can I call back as recommended, when no one answers the phone?
That was the reason for my visit to the passport office on Monday.
After a lengthy wait, I finally spoke to Geoff, a kind agent, who said that my application is in the system but only as “received” status. The next step would be for the Ontario office to scan all the material and process the application.
Geoff said the wait time is about three months, so I would get my passport at the end of July or in mid-August. My cruise is in June.
Geoff told me that if I intended on going on this trip, my best bet would be to recreate my application with the original ID (my birth certificate) and bring it back to the Victoria office.
They would then scan all the material in Victoria and then have the file “transferred” to Victoria. Since I mailed my ID into the Ontario office in April, I would need to reapply for a new birth certificate.
I did that, at a cost of $60, the expedited rate. It should be here in about five business days.
Geoff stated that they can only process five “transfers” a day since each one takes about two hours and that is their limit. To be one of the five, I would need to be one of the first five people in the lineup.
This means that I need to sleep on the street in downtown Victoria in order to hopefully be one of the first five people to see an agent to have my file “transferred.” This does not even guarantee that I will receive a passport by the time I am to travel.
While in the lineups, I heard similar stories from other stressed and anxious would-be travellers, some of whom will not be able to see their end-of-life relatives or spend a special birthday or wedding in a tropical vacation.
I know all businesses are at max capacity with borderline staffing levels, but is there anything that can be done to address the issues about the lineups at the passport office so that I don’t have to spend the night sleeping on the street to secure a spot in the lineup?
I am at my wits’ end, and extremely stressed, as were many of the others I spoke with on Monday.
