After more than two years of pandemic-restricted travel, many Canadians are hoping to relieve their wanderlust this summer.
But there is some concern that vacation plans could be scrambled due to a backlog in passport processing times.
Officials have been bracing for a rise in passport demand with the relaxation of COVID-19 border measures, bringing on 600 new employees to help sort through the influx of paperwork. Last month, Service Canada reopened all passport service counters across the country, and additional counters have been added at more than 300 centres.
Still, some passport seekers say they've been forced to camp outside service centres or reschedule trips because of the bureaucratic bottleneck.
Between April 1st, 2020 and March 31st, 2021, Service Canada issued 363-thousand passports as services were limited to urgent travel cases.
But as the world has reopened, demand has skyrocketed. Between April 1st, 2021 and March 31, 2022, nearly 1.3 million passports were issued.
Since April, more than 317-thousand passports have been handed out, and the federal forecast for 2022-2023 is between 3.6 million and 4.3 million applications.
Based on projections from last week, 75 per cent of Canadians who apply for a passport receive one within 40 working days, a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada said in a statement.
Ninety-six per cent of those who submit an application in-person at a specialized site receive a passport within 10 working days.