Government Operations Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2007

[Jody Thomas]

Well, you're right. Access is a problem in the north, and we are trying to improve it through the Service Canada outlets. That solves only part of the problem. We're aware of that, and we're looking at how we're going to provide emergency service.

What we have done and what we are doing to improve the mail services, the surge of volume notwithstanding, is that we are committed to opening the mail within 24 hours of its arrival. That's been going on for about three weeks.

We are pre-screening those files and rejecting upfront the incomplete applications or the ones where the documents required aren't there or the photos are clearly unacceptable. That's about 30% of the intake.

So it was frustrating for people before the pre-screening was occurring, because their mail would sit there—there's no doubt—and then it would be rejected at some point. We clearly saw, right away, that wasn't acceptable. So we are rejecting mail within 24 hours of its arrival, and that's 30% of our applicants.

Another 14% to 16% of those are rejected because there are problems and difficulties with the form, which clearly indicates to us that we have to revamp the form. So there's a project under way to do that. It sounds simple, but it's not really that simple an undertaking to change a federal government form. We're working on it.

It's also clear that our photo standards, our tolerance for accepting photos, is too strict. So we are revising our standards for photos and expanding the tolerances now and changing how we're approaching our training. Our employees are very dedicated to making sure that we maintain high security standards. They follow the rule of the law in terms of the policy we've put in place. That's what they should do. The policy is too strict and the approach is too strict, so we're changing that to expand the tolerances for accepting photos.

There are a number of things under way to try to improve the quality of service and the immediacy with which people hear that they have a problem. That's going to evolve. It started about three weeks ago. It's going to be an evolving effort as we get through this backlog of mail that we have.

But you're right in your observations, and we are addressing all of them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madame Chair.

The passport services are self-financing. Everyone knew you were facing a surge. How did you go about financing the additional resources that were required?

[Gérald Cossette]

That's an interesting question, because that's the difficulty we have with the forecast. The forecast is useful to estimate how many passports we may issue on an annual basis, hence how much money will be available.

What we did was build our expenditure forecast on 8%, not the 6.6% that we were forecasting. We have a buffer. We have a reserve. We build, basically, a capacity through the reserve. But as the passports started coming in, we knew just by the volume that there would be money available to pay for extra capacity. Now that we know very well the size of the increase, it's possible for us to calculate how much more money we have available than we would normally have.

The issue we have is that, on a cash basis, on an annual basis, we either break even or we're a little bit higher. But if you look on an accrual basis, over time, we're in the red, in the sense that if we're talking about reinvesting in new infrastructure, in automation, in an IM/IT system, that's where we have the problem. We have difficulties accruing enough savings on an annual basis to pay for a long-term investment.

Right now, everything we're getting above and beyond what our baseline was is being spent on expanding the capacity we have to deliver the WHTI.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I guess, Mr. McDonald, that would be your purview. You do have long-range plans, and you must have some cost estimates for those plans. How do you imagine that will be paid for under this self-financing regime?

[Gérald Cossette]

There are two things. We're looking at what can be done from within in terms of accruing enough savings to reinvest.

One thing I have mentioned in my introductory remarks is the renewal process. If we were successful at streamlining our renewal process the way it's done in the U.K., for instance, we would probably reduce the number of people showing up at the passport office by 40% to 50% because there wouldn't be a requirement for them to come in person. So right there, there would be a decrease in the number of people working at counters, the number of hours of overtime, and so on and so forth. That's the first thing.

The second thing is that we're looking at alternating some of the clerical functions we're doing now. It would require a short-term investment, but we would accrue savings in the long term. That could be reinvested in security features.

That said, when we're talking about bigger programs, such as e-passport, and so on and so forth, we are discussing with the government the kind of financial model and framework we would require to deliver those larger initiatives. Those discussions continue.

That's part of the challenge to a certain extent. How do we save, from an operational standpoint, in the medium term to invest in the long term in security features and systems?

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Going on to a different area, the Auditor General's report generally is a good one, and compared to most Auditor General reports on various government departments, you're to be congratulated. Now here comes the “but”. Unfortunately, passports are part of our security regime, so an 80% report card or a 90% one isn't good enough.

I have a few questions around the whole security regime that don't seem to be addressed in the Auditor General's report. For instance, what kind of inventory do you carry in terms of the materials required for a passport in your various offices and in embassies abroad?

[Jody Thomas]

In our embassies abroad, we have changed that process since 2005. They only carry what's called a temporary passport. It's a white book. It has eight pages and it's only valid for one year. We no longer have the blue regular passports.

Certainly they're valued on the market should any go missing, but none have. The white ones are worth significantly less. They are seen as being temporary documents and are accepted around the world. That has become a common practice for most passport-issuing countries.

In terms of our regional offices, we have an inventory system that allows them to carry generally a month to six weeks' worth of inventory, and there's a continual replenishment of inventory from the Canadian Bank Note Company, where the books are printed, to our regional offices.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Are inventory checks done every 24 hours?

[Jody Thomas]

Every day.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So it is every 24 hours. What kind of inventory loss have you had over the past number of years?

[Jody Thomas]

We've had no passport blanks lost since 2002.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

That's excellent. When a second passport is issued because someone has lost or destroyed a passport, how long is the timeframe before the initial passport is deactivated? I understand that there is a computer system that's tied in to most of the world these days. How long is it before that system is activated? What's the timeline?

[Jody Thomas]

It depends on when we're notified. It's 24 hours from the point when we're notified. It goes into our issuing system and it's uploaded to CPIC. CPIC is where it speaks to the world. It goes to the border through the Department of Citizenship and Immigration systems.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So 24 hours is the maximum.

[Jody Thomas]

Yes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

And what is the minimum?

[Jody Thomas]

We upload it daily. It goes from our issuing system into CPIC daily. It's not a live transfer. We have to do an upload of data.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So there's a 24-hour window of opportunity for someone who perhaps has stolen a passport.

[Jody Thomas]

Yes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

There are organizations that were referenced at the beginning, in the opening statement. There's trafficking in people that takes place. There are criminal organizations that deal in passports, but there are also governments that have facilities not much worse than those of the Canadian Bank Note Company, and they themselves have had a past track record of producing these sorts of secure documents.

A lot of Canadians work and visit abroad. There are certain countries where it's a regular occurrence that if someone is going back to Canada within a week, their passports disappear. There's notification, and 24 hours before they're to leave, their passports reappear at the Canadian embassy. At the present time, is there any security regime that red-flags those or begins the process of replacing those with an alternate passport?

[Jody Thomas]

I'm not quite sure how to answer that question. Should a passport go missing, it's immediately deactivated and that passport can't be used. It is never reactivated. So should it show up again at the mission, it can't be reused by anybody and we've issued a duplicate passport to the bearer.

If the bearer hasn't reported it lost or stolen and it suddenly shows up, generally an investigation is opened. Any number of things can trigger an investigation. You do see patterns. We know parts of the world where there are patterns of passports being declared lost and citizens then coming in to get replacements. We work very closely with our partners in CBSA and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration who are posted abroad to resolve just those situations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

Mr. Preston.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much for coming today.

You've been very good at answering a lot of the questions I already had, but I'll try to strike out on some new ground.

First of all, again, thank you to the employees you have out in the offices. They're working yeomen's duty right now, doing more than maybe could be expected of them, and they've been a great help. However, I bet they're not being treated all that nicely in some of those six-hour lineups in minus 37 degree weather.

We had some notification. In 2005 the Auditor General put out a report talking about what a surge in business would be like under WHTI. We're talking now about where we're going to head and what we're trying to do. Where does the planning fault lie here? We didn't get ready. We're now getting ready. We know we're going to solve this, or it sure sounds like we are.

[Gérald Cossette]

I wouldn't say we were not ready. I would say we were not ready for a 35% to 50% increase over a three-month period, that's for sure.

The problem we have with the forecast is that it's an annual forecast. Also, we got caught this year, in that the wave that normally hits Passport Canada in January started in November. According to the numbers we have now, produced by the Conference Board of Canada, 25% applying for a passport now are applying because of next year's requirement to have a passport for land and sea transportation.