New Passport Rules?

[Gambitt]

MacKay aims to shorten waits after new U.S. rules cause a surge in applications

May 15, 2007 04:30 AM
Les Whittington
Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA–Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay says the government is planning to overhaul passport legislation in hopes of easing the process for applying for new passports and the renewals that are required every five years.

"We are going to be introducing a Passport Canada Act which will deal with some of the perceived and real difficulties around the application process, including the renewal process," he told the media. "We hope to be able to streamline that."

But officials in his department said the proposed legislation is still in the early stages of interdepartmental discussion. There was no information available from Passport Canada, a separate government agency, on the details of the legislative changes or when they might be introduced in Parliament.

Since the United States brought in security regulations requiring Canadians to carry passports when flying into the U.S., Passport Canada has been overwhelmed with applications.

MacKay, who is responsible for the passport agency, has been accused by opposition MPs of failing to ramp up facilities to accommodate the surge in demand resulting from the new U.S. rule. And the media has been full of stories about Canadians who have missed out on planned trips because they couldn't obtain travel documents on time, or had to line up in the middle of the night to submit a passport application.

MacKay insists the situation is improving. Passport Canada has hired 500 more employees and increased its capacity by more than 40 per cent, he says.

"Passport Canada officials have been working around the clock, many of them coming in on weekends, many of them volunteering their time, working extremely hard to deal with this issue, and we're seeing results," he told reporters.

"We're going to continue to put a full press on to get (the backlog) down quickly."

The agency is still receiving about 18,000 passport applications daily.

But it has increased capacity to 20,000 a day, MacKay's officials said.

As a result, the government hopes to whittle away the current backlog by summer's end.

Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins doused optimism that high-tech drivers' licences would be sufficient ID for land crossings at the U.S.-Canada border when the next stage of the new American security rules comes into effect.

"What I tell Canadians is the same thing I tell Americans – with all due respect – get a passport.

"That is the sure thing," he said while inspecting a new customs facility in upper New York state, designed to speed up truck traffic at the Quebec border.

"(The law) requires passports for air travel now and it will require passports for land travel sometime between January '08 and June of '09," Wilkins said.

Last week, Ontario Tourism Minister Jim Bradley told the Toronto Star he was seeing "a climate change in Washington ... They've gone from cold to warm on utilizing a secure driver's licence for identification going across the border."

Despite Wilkins' comments yesterday, Bradley remained confident Washington is reconsidering its hard-line stance on requiring passports at border crossings.

"(Wilkins) has a position to defend and his position, and the administration's perhaps, has always been that they would love to see the passport as their Number One – but they are looking at alternatives now and I'm encouraged by the fact that they are looking at alternatives," Bradley said.

With files from Kerry Gillespie