Passport lineups? Oh yes, they are still long… long enough to merit camping out in order to get to work on time. Flush with assurances that offices have been staffed up and wait-times reduced to “five minutes”, I foolishly arrived at the Sparks St office just after 7:30 AM. With my application in perfect order, my actual time at the wicket ended up being less than 3 minutes… but the wait to get there was about 2 hours. But apparently even this 2-hour wait is not the norm… Passport Canada staff advised us that the line was usually much longer, that on Tuesday the queue had snaked around the entire 3rd floor (somehow that did not reassure me in the slightest). To make matters worse, while I was sitting in the queue—realizing I’d be late to work—I attempted to make a call from my cel… no reception! Then the battery died. After leaving the building, I ran frantically to catch the #2 bus that was passing by… jumped on and breathed a sigh of relief, only to discover a minute later that I was heading the wrong way. I had entered and left the CD Howe building from different directions, and now was left to curse my stupidity. Two stops later, I catapulted straight off that bus and into a pile of grey slush, at which point I began an equally frantic run down Bank St in the opposite direction. What a triumphant start to the day.
While waiting in line, I overheard several of my fellow citizens discussing their passport application experiences. Many were here for the second and third times, sent back with incomplete forms or inadmissible ID. One particularly cocky young fellow was dispensing opinions on everything from amount of time it would take to get to the front of the line, to how many empty chairs remained in the waiting room, to how long it would take to process, to the guidelines for guarantor signatures. He had absolutely no authority to do so—as far as I could see—and, since he was lining up for his professed third attempt to submit a passport application properly, I would not want to take advice from him regardless. In general, I was shocked at how little the applicants actually knew about the passport process. The information is readily available online, in both official languages, and the application itself includes 5 pages of clear instructions and a final checklist. In my very humble opinion... if you can read and follow instructions, then you can complete the application properly and satisfy all the requirements. The agents themselves—all very friendly and competent young people—have my sympathy, because I’d imagine they have to deal with quite a few (ahem) idiots each day.
But perhaps the most mind-boggling question for me was: “Why, after waiting in line for 2+ hours, do you not notice when finally your number starts flashing on that big digital screen?” I was in the actual waiting room for about an hour and during that time, I lost count of how many people either did not read the number they were assigned, did not understand that they had to go up to the appropriate wicket when their number flashed on the screen, or who were not watching the screen at all.
However, I got the process over with and now, hopefully, am one step closer to my vacation in Ireland & the Netherlands.
