Evidence of meeting #70 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was service.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
In the case of someone who is serving a long-term sentence, for example, you may not be able to correct a passport if it is valid for 10 years. I imagine that a five-year term would allow you to react more quickly. That is something that may not have occurred to you.
Chief Executive Officer, Passport Canada
Yes, we did consider it. The information is verified every five years, but, as you say, if we had a ten-year validity period, Passport Canada would have no way of knowing if the situation were to change during that timeframe.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Merci beaucoup.
Go ahead, Mr. Fitzpatrick, for seven minutes—oh, I'm sorry, there are 30 seconds left, Mr. Roy.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Roy Bloc Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
I would like to come back to the distribution of Passport Canada offices. I am in the same situation as Mr. Rota. Some people had to travel 1,000 kilometres to pick up their passport because of the problems experienced at Passport Canada. I am referring to people from Sainte-Anne-des-Monts and from Gaspé, who had to travel to Quebec City. That took two days, not just one. They had to spend the night in Quebec City and go to the office the following morning to pick up their passport. Passport Canada did not compensate these people, even though they had sent in their application up to six months earlier. This type of thing has really occurred. There are people in my riding whose vacation plans have been ruined, who have lost their money because, of course, travel agencies have not provided refunds.
My question relates to the number of Passport Canada offices, particularly in Quebec. There is no office in my riding. The closest one is in Quebec City. One would have to travel at least 500 kilometres from the edge of my riding to the Quebec City office. Enough is enough. You say that all citizens are provided with the same level of service, but that is not the case.
Chief Executive Officer, Passport Canada
This year, the problems were caused by the fact that the service standards were much longer for people who applied by mail. If the standard was 20 days, which should have been the case, then the best course of action would have been to apply by mail.
In the long term, we would like to provide passport renewals without the need to submit documents. Then, people would not have to go to a Passport Canada office: they could use our Passport on-line service to apply. At this time, we only have an on-line application form. Having fewer documents to submit will mean having to make fewer trips to the Passport Canada office.
As to the distribution of the Passport Canada offices, it has always been a function of the demand. However, we are aware that the demand might be changing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you very much, Mr. Roy.
Just before we go to Mr. Fitzpatrick, I want to clarify something, Mr. Cossette, that you just said before this committee.
Are you saying that last winter the norm for processing a passport through Ottawa was 20 days? Is that what you're saying?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
“Should be”. I know your website said 20 days, but our experience all winter, from November to the end of May, was that it was probably closer to 60 days. Are you saying you were meeting the norm of 20 days? Is that what you're telling me?
Chief Executive Officer, Passport Canada
No, no. I'm saying that if we did meet the norm of 20 days, it would be more acceptable—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
You're saying you agree with me that your website said the norm was 20 days—that's what you said you would do it in—but in actual fact it was 60 days.
Jody Thomas Acting Director General, Security Bureau, Passport Canada
What our website said was that our service standard--our expected service standard--was 20 days, and it's something we publish. We started updating it with the actual number in December.
Liberal
Acting Director General, Security Bureau, Passport Canada
Oh, absolutely, we knew that.
Conservative
Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I'm given to understand that over the past year there's been an extraordinary surge in passport applications, something that maybe should have been expected two or three years ago, but we're into that surge situation. I think I'm going to compliment the department, because I read a study not long ago saying that the U.S. Congress is identifying that they're way behind Canada in passport processing right now, and they have to re-evaluate their whole law or they're going to have major bottlenecks on their side, not on our side. This is the backdrop we're dealing with here.
Perhaps you could explain what sorts of improvements and steps were taken by Passport Canada to deal with this big onslaught of passport applications, and the ones that are going to be coming between now and the new year and into the next year. Maybe you could give us some indication of how you're doing on this matter and whether you have some standards or benchmarks you can compare yourself to.
Please go ahead.
Chief Executive Officer, Passport Canada
The forecast we had last year, which is provided to us by the Conference Board of Canada through a sophisticated model, was 6.6%. That was the forecast, so we prepared ourselves for a 6.6% increase. What happened was that the real increase was 22%. The difference between the 6.6% and the 22% is due mainly to the confusion surrounding the implementation of WHTI.
We know through surveys that 25% of people thought the land and sea ruling of WHTI was supposed to come into effect in January 2007 instead of January 2008, so the demand for 25% of the 3.6 million passports was basically caused by that confusion. We also know that 10% of all the applicants just applied without necessarily having travel plans; they never expressed a specific date as to when they would need their passport, and so on.
We reacted last year basically by hiring more people. Our process is still very much manual-driven, so we hired more people. What we're doing right now to face the situation in the fall is, first, we have simplified some of our policies—for example, the renewal policy, which allows people to apply without submitting their documents. It's the same thing with regard to the guarantor—
Chief Executive Officer, Passport Canada
In the renewal process people will be able to apply without having to send their birth certificates or certificates of citizenship. Of course, that means less processing time for us; the process is simplified on our side as well, so we're saving time there.
Conservative
Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Are you lengthening how long a passport lasts? That seems to be something many people are suggesting to deal with the backlog. Is that part of the simplifying?
Chief Executive Officer, Passport Canada
We have looked at the validity period--five years versus ten years--and our position is that we should keep the five-year validity period, mainly for security reasons. It's easier to update your passport as technology evolves. It's easier to do your security check every five years instead of every ten years, and, with the exception of the service side—having a passport for 10 years—it's easier for the applicant. From a security standpoint, we gain nothing at Passport Canada by extending the validity.
Conservative
Brian Fitzpatrick Conservative Prince Albert, SK
It's just curiosity on this matter. If there's somebody out there who has a passport, whether it's for five years or ten years, and they become a security risk—they do something that puts them in that category—does something happen to trigger something that comes to your office to let you know that the person is now a security risk and it trigger a review of the passport situation?
Acting Director General, Security Bureau, Passport Canada
If we receive information from an agency such as the RCMP that tells us an individual is travelling and is a security risk—