Ottawa veut étendre la citoyenneté aux enfants nés à l’étranger de Canadiens, Chris Selley: Finally, an easy fix to the Citizenship Act, 18 years in the making

2024/05/25 Leave a comment

Limited commentary to date:

…Professeur en droit de l’immigration, des réfugiés et de la citoyenneté à l’Université d’Ottawa, Yves Le Bouthillier accueille favorablement le nouveau projet de loi, affirmant que les nouveaux changements pourront encourager la mobilité internationale des Canadiens.

« Pour les femmes, si elles voulaient vraiment préserver le droit de leurs enfants de transmettre leur citoyenneté, il fallait rester au Canada pour accoucher », donne-t-il comme exemple.

Les parents nés à l’extérieur du pays devront avoir passé au moins 1095 jours cumulatifs (trois ans) au Canada avant la naissance ou l’adoption de leur enfant pour lui transmettre leur citoyenneté canadienne.

« Je pense que c’est une limite raisonnable à ce qui constitue un lien substantiel avec le Canada », a expliqué le ministre.

Le professeur Le Bouthillier indique que le seuil de 1095 jours est assez souple comparativement aux critères d’autres pays. Aux États-Unis, par exemple, un parent doit être un citoyen américain et avoir passé au moins cinq ans physiquement aux États-Unis avant la naissance de l’enfant pour lui transmettre la citoyenneté. Au moins deux ans de cette présence physique doivent être après le 14e anniversaire du parent.

Le projet de loi canadien favorise ainsi la rétention et l’acquisition de la citoyenneté à travers le parent, analyse le professeur.

Un nouveau test pour les enfants nés après l’entrée en vigueur de la réforme sera aussi mis en oeuvre pour « évaluer les liens manifestes » avec le Canada….

Source: Ottawa veut étendre la citoyenneté aux enfants nés à l’étranger de Canadiens

Chris Selley in the NP has a valid point regarding exercising ministerial discretion, rather than arguably broader measures than needed to address particular cases:

….If citizenship ministers had been willing to exercise their broad discretion and grant citizenship to people like the infant Burgess son, it might not have been a problem. There aren’t thousands of these cases, though there are more than a few. I know two Canadian children who (as it stands) won’t be able to pass on Canadian citizenship to their children, should their children be born abroad. One of them has a brother who will be able to pass on Canadian citizenship to his children, should they be born abroad, because he happened to be born after his parents moved back to Canada.

This is not coherent. Bill C-71 offers the promise of coherency.

Source: Chris Selley: Finally, an easy fix to the Citizenship Act, 18 years in the making

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In between belonging: New ICC report sheds light on how newcomers feel about Canadian citizenship

2024/05/23 Leave a comment

Good informative analysis of those who have participated in Canoo, generating what I consider to be sensible recommendations (disclosure: I continue to work with ICC on citizenship data questions). I would however recommend a greater shift towards in-person ceremonies with specific public reporting on virtual and in-person with a performance target ideally at 80 percent or close to it:

Our analysis combines survey and interview data from newcomers participating in the Canoo Access Pass who shared their perspectives on Canadian citizenship and the various factors that influence their views on whether to naturalize.

To read the full report, click here.

While a majority of the permanent residents (PRs) surveyed express positive views on Canadian citizenship and either intend to apply or have already done so, a significant 21% remain uncertain or reluctant to apply. Through in-depth follow-up interviews with 40 respondents, we found the following factors play a role in shaping newcomers’ views on naturalization:

  • Dual Citizenship Restrictions and Economic Opportunities: For newcomers from countries with robust economies and stringent dual citizenship regulations, the allure of Canadian citizenship may be overshadowed by the advantages of retaining their original nationality. Economic prospects within and beyond Canada play a pivotal role in shaping individuals’ decisions.
  • Unmet Expectations and Integration Challenges: The journey to integration is often fraught with obstacles, from navigating the labour market to grappling with cultural nuances. Mismatches between preconceived notions and the realities of life in Canada can lead to feelings of isolation and hinder newcomers’ sense of belonging.
  • Challenges Accessing Support Services: Many newcomers report feeling adrift amidst the numerous integration services, highlighting a pressing need for specific accessible resources that foster a sense of community and facilitate a smoother transition to life in Canada.

In response to these findings, the ICC proposes the following recommendations to increase newcomer access and improve Canada’s citizenship program overall:

1. Establish Meaningful Naturalization Targets: Set ambitious yet achievable benchmarks for PRs to obtain citizenship within a specified timeframe, fostering a sense of purpose and belonging.

2. Enhance Accessibility of Citizenship Ceremonies: Make citizenship ceremonies more inclusive and publicly accessible, celebrating the diverse tapestry of Canadian identity.

3. Invest in Citizenship Promotion Programs: Allocate resources to initiatives that promote citizenship awareness and engagement, empowering newcomers to embrace their Canadian identity.

4. Prioritize Immigrant Satisfaction and Retention: Uphold immigrant satisfaction as a cornerstone of national policy, nurturing a welcoming environment that encourages long-term residency and civic participation.

Source: In between belonging: New ICC report sheds light on how newcomers feel about Canadian citizenship

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Questions persist as Ottawa prepares  Citizenship Act amendments

2024/05/20 Leave a comment

We should know soon enough.

The legislation applying a first generation citizenship transmission limit included provisions for stateless provisions. However, IRCC citizenship operational statistics do not include a stateless category (standard table understandably is country of birth, not citizenship) and Statistics Canada does not capture how many stateless persons became citizens, which some certainly did.

However, IRCC operational statistics show a monthly average of about 90 stateless permanent residents since the pandemic and presumably most will apply and become citizens given their interest in having the security that citizenship provides.

The “lost Canadians” have mostly been found given successive lobbying and changes to the Citizenship Act to address gaps, even if the gaps were proven to the exaggerated as the number of total numbers of citizenship proofs were significant lower than the claims (22,000, 2007-22, data provided by IRCC).

Will see if the government uses the same residency requirements for children caught by the first generation cut-off as for immigrants, or whether it reverts to previous complex and contentious retention provisions:

The federal government is said to be preparing a bill to amend the Citizenship Act, but the details are still unclear – a concern for more than 3,500 stateless people who are in the country but have no access to critical services such as medical care.

They include former Canadians who had their citizenship revoked due to now-repealed provisions of the act. These nationless people are known as “Lost Canadians.”

The news comes after months of quiet on this issue. Last December, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled the act unconstitutionally creates two classes of Canadians and gave the government until June 19 to amend the Citizenship Act. The government said it wouldn’t challenge the decision but shared nothing further on the work being done.

The court also found the act has uneven impacts on women, particularly under Section 3(3)(a) which prevents certain second-generation Canadian mothers who live abroad from passing citizenship to their children, unless they return to Canada to give birth.

On Saturday, The Globe and Mail reported that the government has drafted a new bill to respond to the court order amid frustrations over the lack of progress on Bill S-245, which attempts to achieve the same goals. NDP member Jenny Kwan blamed Conservative filibuster tactics for causing the delay.

A Commons committee completed its considerations of Bill S-245 nearly a year ago but an official website reports “no activity” on the file. Third and final reading of the bill in the Commons was scheduled in January but was cancelled, and there remains no new date for this.

If passed into law, Bill S-245 would reinstate citizenship for those born abroad to Canadian parents between 1977 and 1981, though critics have argued it doesn’t go far enough to help tens of thousands who fall outside of that category.

Word that the government is preparing its own legislation on the issue should bring hope to the families torn apart by the act’s outdated provisions, but questions remain about the possible continued use of a “substantial connection test.”

The legislation may require the parents in these families to prove their ties to Canada to be able to pass down citizenship to children born abroad. The criteria for this test are not publicly known.

Meanwhile, Lost Canadians whose fates have rested on the passing of Bill S-245 or similar legislation continue to be denied access to health care, education and employment as they await more information.

The federal government should not delay in sharing the steps it intends to take to amend the Citizenship Act. A lack of transparency and communication about past changes to the legislation created this problem in the first place – and keeping the public in the dark will only prolong it.

How citizenship is lost 

The Citizenship Act has been amended several times since it was enacted in 1947, including provisions introduced in 1977 and 2009 that stripped certain born-abroad Canadians of their citizenship.

Thousands lost their citizenship because they were born outside Canada or had lived abroad for six or more years. Dual citizenship holders at one point faced deportation, while those who possessed only Canadian citizenship became stateless. A 2007 CBC investigation revealed up to 200,000 people were impacted.

Other amendments to the act have consistently failed to help several categories of Lost Canadians, including children born out of wedlock to Canadian servicemen and a foreign mother during wartime, and citizens born abroad between 1977 and 1981.

Who “counts” as Canadian?

The definition of Canadian citizenship is complicated. The first iteration of the Citizenship Act created two classes of “natural-born Canadians” who could hold citizenship: people born in Canada or on a Canadian ship or aircraft, and children born abroad to a Canadian-born father before 1947.

When a 1977 amendment restored the legality of dual citizenship, those who had lost their Canadian status under the original legislation did not have it automatically reinstated.

That 1977 amendment also introduced a new provision: under Section 8, born-abroad Canadians would have to apply to keep their citizenship before turning 28 years old – and would also need to have resided in Canada for the year preceding their application. Most affected Canadians were not informed of these requirements.

In 2009, attempting to resolve these complications, the Stephen Harper government repealed Section 8 by passing Bill C-37. However, the amendment came with two caveats:

  • First, those who had lost citizenship under the now-repealed provisions would not have it restored automatically. These former Canadians could apply for citizenship, but with no guarantee of approval. (The repeal also did not apply to Lost Canadians born abroad between 1977 and 1981.)
  • Second, a born-abroad Canadian could pass down citizenship only to children born in Canada. Children born abroad to second- or subsequent-generation Canadians would need to apply for immigrant or refugee status to follow their parents back to Canada. If born in a country without a birthright citizenship law, the children would be stateless – a major human rights violation, according to the United Nations.

Lost Canadians claim they were informed of the conditionality of their citizenship only when it was too late, such as when, after age 28, they applied for government pensions, driver’s licences, passport renewals or health care.

That was the case for Pete Giesbrecht. Born in Mexico in 1979 to born-abroad Canadian parents, the family returned to Canada when he was seven years old. But when Giesbrecht applied to renew his passport in 2015 – after living nearly 30 years in Canada – he was told he faced possible deportation.

Giesbrecht was officially stateless, without citizenship in another country to which he could be deported. When he reapplied for Canadian citizenship, he was required to prove his long-time connection to the country. After two years of uncertainty, Giesbrecht found a community of Lost Canadians to help advocate on his behalf and was re-granted citizenship.

Ontario court highlights sex discrimination

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling in December found the Citizenship Act confers “a lesser class of citizenship” to Canadians born outside the country and echoed criticisms of the second-generation cut-off rule’s unjust impact on women.

Adoptees of foreign-born children, and second-generation, born-abroad Canadian mothers who gave birth abroad, are among those who have faced an undue burden. If a woman moved abroad for work and became pregnant in another country, she was required to return to Canada to give birth to pass down her citizenship.

Victoria Maruyama, a Canadian who gave birth while working in Japan temporarily, was told she had to apply to sponsor her two children as immigrants to Canada. On both occasions, her applications were rejected.

A few high-profile cases have succeeded in catching the attention – and intervention – of the immigration minister. One example is 16-year-old Olympic hopeful Erin Brooks, whose bid for citizenship has been successful. However, most families have been left dangling in uncertainty.

What now?

It’s not known whether the government will release more information about how it intends to modify the act before the June deadline.

As far as we know, the latest news does not guarantee Canadian citizenship for all applicants. The expectation that families will be required to pass a substantial connection test to bring their children into Canada means there’s a possibility their applications will be denied.

The lack of clarity leaves a cloud of doubt looming over Lost Canadians. How much longer will they have to wait?

After so many years of confusion and oscillation, it seems imperative for the government to share in greater detail how it plans to move forward.

Source: Questions persist as Ottawa prepares Citizenship Act amendments

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‘It’s not that easy’: plan to allow dual citizenship leaves Indonesia divided

2024/05/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

Members of the Indonesian diaspora have welcomed an announcement from a high-ranking government official that plans to allow for dual citizenship are in the works, but they are wary of whether there is enough political will to make it happen.

“We welcome the discourse [to allow] dual citizenship, because in the end, the diaspora and children of mixed marriages also benefit from it, as well as the country,” Enggi Holt, an Indonesian who lives in Britain, told This Week in Asia.

“But we also have to see how far the government dares to change the paradigm, from single citizenship to dual citizenship, because the costs will be very high. [An amendment to the law] is a political process between the government and the legislature, so the sticking point is, do they have the political will or is it just a political campaign? If it’s a political campaign, it’s not worth digging further.”

Indonesia does not allow adults to hold dual nationalities, and children of mixed marriages must decide their nationality at the age of 21.

However, Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said the government was working on changes to that law.

“We are welcoming the Indonesian diaspora soon with the provision of dual citizenship. When they [diaspora] fulfil the requirements to obtain Indonesian citizenship, in my opinion, it will really help the Indonesian economy and also bring highly skilled Indonesians [diaspora] back to Indonesia,” Luhut said at an event attended by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in Jakarta on April 30.

However, he did not offer any particular timeline or further details about the potential change to the law, and nothing else has been announced since.

The statement by Luhut, also known as President Joko Widodo’s right-hand man, has sparked hope among diaspora members, particularly those who have campaigned for years for the country to “progress” towards adopting a dual-nationality principle.

Source: ‘It’s not that easy’: plan to allow dual citizenship leaves Indonesia divided

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Yakabuski: Instead of importing millionaires, Canada needs to produce more of them

2024/05/16 Leave a comment

Good comments on citizenship-by-investment programs:

…If it is the latter, then Canadians might have reason to be concerned. Mr. Hunt’s budget move aside, countries around the world have been bending over backward to attract high-net-worth immigrants from China, India and other emerging countries (and high-tax developed ones) by fast-tracking their citizenship or providing lucrative tax breaks.

Canada used to do that, too. In 2014, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper scrapped the 28-year-old federal Immigrant Investor Program, after concluding that “most immigrant investors [were] not making a long-term positive contribution to Canada.”…

Perhaps the lesson here is that, instead of importing millionaires, maybe Canada needs to do a better job at producing them. Raising the capital-gains tax inclusion rate, as Ottawa’s latest budget proposes, will not help do that. If the critics are right, it could even prompt some of our existing millionaires to leave.

Source: Instead of importing millionaires, Canada needs to produce more of them

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Canadians outraged over Parks Canada’s free admission to “newcomers” policy 

2024/05/14 Leave a comment

Typical overstating without appreciation of the policy and practical rationale to do so to strengthen integration and sense of belonging. And of course, no numbers on how many:

Many Canadians expressed their discontent with a newly announced Parks Canada policy allowing “newcomers to Canada and new Canadian citizens” free admission to all national parks, historic sites and marine conservation areas as part of a new policy.

According to the Parks Canada website, for the next year “admission to all national parks, national historic sites, and national marine conservation areas operated by Parks Canada.”

“Using the Institute for Canadian Citizenship’s Canoo mobile app, enjoy free admission to all places administered by Parks Canada across the country for one full year,” it reads. 

However, the free admission policy is limited solely to newcomers and new Canadian citizens, if you’re already a tax paying citizen, you’ll be paying full price. 

“Get back to nature and unwind amidst the spectacular scenery in Canada’s national parks and marine conservation areas,” reads the website. “Celebrate your arrival in Canada or your citizenship with great Canadian experiences,” it continued.

“Check out some of the most awesome places in Canada. We look forward to welcoming you!”

The 1998 Parks Canada Agency Act established Parks Canada as a separate Government of Canada Agency, which currently reports to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

While daily admission and service fees and single-location passes are variable depending on the location, camping fees for a family pass begin at $151.25.

The announcement was met with strong disapproval on X, with the overwhelming majority of comments frustrated with the new policy. 

Source: Canadians outraged over Parks Canada’s free admission to “newcomers” policy

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Ottawa prepares bill to reinstate citizenship rights of ‘lost Canadians’

2024/05/13 Leave a comment

Hard to see that bill will make it through both houses by the June 19 deadline, likely meaning no restrictions pending the Bill becoming law:

Ottawa is preparing a bill to reinstate rights for “lost Canadians” after an Ontario court ruled it is unconstitutional to deny citizenship to children born overseas to Canadians also born outside the country.

The bill is expected to require a Canadian parent born abroad to demonstrate substantial ties to Canada before they can pass on citizenship to a child born outside Canada.

The bill would reverse a change by Stephen Harper’s government in 2009 which stripped children of a Canadian parent born outside Canada of their automatic right to citizenship.

The 2009 change was designed to crack down on what Conservatives called “Canadians of convenience.” It followed an outcry after Canada spent more than $80-million to evacuate 15,000 Canadian citizens from Lebanon in 2006 during the Israel-Hezbollah war….

Source: Ottawa prepares bill to reinstate citizenship rights of ‘lost Canadians’

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Melbourne man ‘dumbfounded’ after finding out he lost Australian citizenship 33 years ago

2024/05/11 Leave a comment

Of note. What struck me the most was the speed of the government response, focussing on the essential, rather than process. But like in Canada, it took media interest to provoke a response:

Sometimes wonder Last month the 55-year-old was informed by Home Affairs that he had no Australian citizenship or visa, due to a law that was repealed more than 20 years ago.

When the father-of-two told his employer about the situation, he was initially stood down from work without pay.

“I’m no longer Australian and apparently I haven’t been for the last 33 years,” Mr Keogh told Raf Epstein on ABC Radio Melbourne Mornings.

“It’s not a situation I expected to find myself in. I’m mid-50s, I’ve paid my taxes … I’m very grateful to be Australian.”

Applying for Irish citizenship had unintended consequences

Mr Keogh’s grandparents were Irish and, proud of his ancestry, he decided to register his heritage with the Irish government when he was 22.

He didn’t understand that would automatically be treated as an application for Irish citizenship or, crucially, that he would immediately lose Australian citizenship as a result.

Mr Keogh received Irish citizenship and a passport, which he held alongside Australian identity documents which technically were not valid.

It was never flagged as a problem until he came forward late last year.

When Mr Keogh shared his story on ABC Radio Melbourne today, the office of the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Giles, said they were looking into Mr Keogh’s case.

Three hours later his citizenship was restored.

He said he was “absolutely elated” to have his citizenship restored after going to the media, but the problem was not solved.

Source: Melbourne man ‘dumbfounded’ after finding out he lost Australian citizenship 33 years ago

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House passes bill to add citizenship question to U.S. Census

2024/05/10 Leave a comment

While a citizenship question, like we have in Canada, makes sense,  the blatant politicisation and political purpose of the initiative does not given how it would further reinforce the political weight of rural states compared to more urban ones:

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would add a citizenship question to the next U.S. Census in 2030, preventing non-citizens or illegal immigrants from being counted toward the allocation of representatives and federal electors in each state.

The Equal Representation Act passed the House by a vote of 206 to 202, along party lines. It now moves to the Senate.

Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., who introduced the bill in January, called it “commonsense” that only U.S. citizens be counted when it comes to representation. Currently, anyone who participates in the census every 10 years — including non-citizens and undocumented immigrants — is counted for redistricting.

“One of the lesser acknowledged, but equally alarming, side effects of this administration’s failure to secure the southern border is the illegal immigrant population’s influence in America’s electoral process,” Edwards said on the House floor Wednesday.

“Though commonsense dictates that only citizens should be counted for apportionment purposes, illegal aliens have nonetheless recently been counted toward the final tallies that determine how many House seats each state is allocated and the number of electoral votes it will wield in presidential elections,” Edwards added.

The White House has been “strongly opposed” to putting a citizenship question on the census, saying it would be too costly.

“The bill would increase the cost of conducting the census and make it more difficult to obtain accurate data,” the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said in a statement this week.

“It would also violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires that the number of seats in the House of Representatives ‘be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state,'” the White House added.

“It is unconscionable that illegal immigrants and non-citizens are counted toward congressional district apportionment and our electoral map,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.

“While people continue to flee Democrat-run cities, desperate Democrats are back-filling the mass exodus with illegal immigrants so that they do not lose their seats in Congress or their electoral votes for the presidency, hence artificially boosting their political power and in turn diluting the power of Americans’ votes.”

Before Wednesday’s vote, Democrats blasted the effort as unconstitutional and a waste of time given its prospects in the Senate.

“This bill is an affront to the great radical Republicans who wrote the original Constitution and the 14the Amendment, which has always made persons, not voters, the basis for reapportionment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. “This bill would destroy the accuracy of the census, which may have something to do with its real legislative motivation.”

Source: House passes bill to add citizenship question to U.S. Census

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Hours on hold and long queues: Canadians still grappling with poor passport service

2024/05/09 Leave a comment

I had thought that the earlier problems with backlogs had been solved. Largely yes according to the data but it now appears that the problems are wait times for call centres and for in person service. Ongoing accountability issue between IRCC, with policy responsibility, and Service Canada for service delivery. Appears that the accountability issues mentioned in the IRCC evaluation in 2020 have not been addressed:

Canadians routinely wait hours on the phone and in person when dealing with Passport Canada, leaving many travellers infuriated by the quality of the agency’s customer service.

Post-COVID chaos at passport offices prompted the federal government to step up and promise a series of changes to get the documents into travellers’ hands in a timely manner.

Passport Canada claims that after a prolonged period of pandemic-related delays, the agency has returned to its normal “service standard” of getting passports to most people in 10 or 20 business days, depending on where an application is initially filed.

But the agency’s service standard makes no promises about how quickly they will serve people in person or over the phone.

Data and anecdotal reports suggest Passport Canada’s customer service track record is poor.

A CBC News analysis of passport office wait times shows people in urban centres often wait several hours to get face-to-face with a customer service agent at Passport Canada-branded offices.

On a weekday morning in mid-March, for example, Passport Canada’s website estimated the wait time at its west-end Ottawa location at 2 hours and 45 minutes.

In downtown Toronto that month, would-be passport holders faced a three-hour wait to get to the front of the line before noon.

The wait times in late April were much the same: people in Mississauga, Ont. were being told then they’d have to wait about 2 hours and 45 minutes to be served if they were on site at 9:30 a.m. There was a bright spot in Halifax — there the wait was only an hour.

On Monday, prospective passport holders in Brampton, Ont. faced a nearly three-hour wait shortly after that city’s office opened, according to Passport Canada data published online.

At Calgary’s Sunpark Drive location, travellers were told it would be at least three hours before they could speak to somebody after it opened its doors for the day, online data shows.

More than 12 hours on hold

Debbie Braun is a retiree who lives in High River, Alta., less than an hour south of Calgary.

She told CBC News that the prospect of those long in-person wait times led her to skip the drive into the city and send her passport application by mail in February.

And given Passport Canada’s commitment to process the vast majority of mail-in applications “within 20 days,” Braun thought she’d have her hands on a renewed passport well before her Mexican vacation in April.

In the end, it took twice as long. Braun said she got her passport in 40 days — and only after a bureaucratic battle with multiple phone calls and more than 12 hours spent on hold.

It was the same time frame for Braun’s daughter, who filed separately by mail from northern Alberta.

That’s despite Passport Canada’s commitment that 90 per cent of all mail-in applications will be processed within 20 days.

The agency routinely blows past that target.

Government data from 2022-23 reveals Passport Canada only met that 20-day processing target 52 per cent of the time.

Numbers from the past fiscal year haven’t been published online yet. A year ago, Karina Gould, who was the minister in charge of passports at the time, suggested there had been a big improvement.

Andrew Griffith is a former director general at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) who also worked at Service Canada and on passport files during his long tenure in government.

“The wait times are excessive. Nobody leaves happy if they have to wait three hours in person or on the phone,” he told CBC News.

“They either need to staff up or find other ways to reduce the time lag. I think, from a service point of view, it’s really problematic and it’s the kind of thing that undermines the faith of people in government institutions.”

While they’ve promised the option in the past, the government doesn’t yet allow Canadians to apply for a passport online.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller has said “system vulnerabilities” have prevented Ottawa from fulfilling that commitment. “It’s not secure,” he told reporters in February.

People can only fill out the required forms on the computer. Applicants still have to print them out and send them by mail for processing, or submit them in person.

That’s what Braun did — but then she wanted to use the government’s online application status tracker to keep tabs on her progress.

The federal government launched the tracker after the chaos of 2022-23, billing it as a big fix to prevent future passport pileups.

But Braun soon discovered she needed a file number to log in. She said she had to call to get that information because the online file number generator was “useless” and never gave her one after days of failed attempts.

That’s when the trouble started.

‘Who has time for that?’

“That first morning I called, there were 376 calls ahead of me in the queue,” she told CBC News. “I had no choice — I had to sit there and wait.”

Passport Canada had somehow affixed an old mailing address to her file. Braun filled out the right address when she sent it in, she said, and she has a copy of the application to prove it.

Each time she dialled through, she said, she was faced with a wall of other callers in front of her.

Later in February, she was number 352 on the line to speak to an operator.

In March, 377 people were ahead of her on the phone. On another March call, she was caller number 367.

On her last and final call that month, there were more than 500 callers ahead of her on hold, she said.

“I mean, who has time for that? Five hundred calls?” Braun said.

Braun said her average wait time to get an agent on the line was two hours and 40 minutes.

“How can somebody at an office sit on hold for two and a half hours?” she said.

Braun described some of the operators as “quite rude” and argumentative, adding they blamed her for an address error that was really their fault.

“I worked for Greyhound Canada for 35 years and if I would’ve done what Passport Canada does to the people calling in, I would have been fired,” she said. “It just angers me and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you know?”

She said that while the government has “bragged” about its changes to the passport program, it has nothing to boast about.

“They just tell the people what they want to hear — ‘Oh, we’ve fixed everything’ — and the systems they put in place to improve things aren’t adequate because they don’t think it through,” she said.

40 days to get a passport

No one federal department is responsible for the passport program.

That’s a problem, Griffith said, because nobody wants to take ownership of a vital service that touches so many Canadians personally.

In 2023, after the passport fiasco, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau created a new cabinet position called “citizens’ services,” with a minister responsible for “serving as our government’s champion for service delivery excellence.”

Trudeau’s mandate letter to the minister, Terry Beech, said he should focus on “delivering services where and when Canadians need them” and deal with “service delivery challenges” on passports.

A spokesperson for Beech said he was not available for an interview.

Griffith said Beech’s appointment was political — an attempt to show people the government cares about wait times. But the minister does not seem to have the power to push through any real change, he added.

“I never really thought the ministerial role was a meaningful position,” he said. “I don’t think it needs a minister unless you’re really going to revamp government. You never see Beech, he’s not very active.”

IRCC, which is taking the lead on introducing online passport applications, said in a media statement that it “remains committed” to the concept but didn’t offer a timeline for a rollout.

Employment and Social Development Canada, which is responsible for managing the passport program on behalf of IRCC, told CBC News that it sometimes “experiences increased demand on a seasonal basis as popular travel times approach.”

As for long call centre wait times, the department said time spent on hold “can vary and some clients may experience either longer or shorter hold times.”

The department says it encourages people to use the online status tracker to “get updates on their applications without needing to call or visit Service Canada.”

“Service Canada remains committed to service excellence and improving the experience for clients applying for passports,” the department said.

Braun, meanwhile, said her experience left her with little faith in government’s ability to deliver.

“I followed the rules, I did what I was supposed to do and then you have to go through the nightmare and you get upset,” Braun said.

“It’s a good thing I did the 10-year passport thing because I don’t think I could go through this again in five years.”

Source: Hours on hold and long queues: Canadians still grappling with poor passport service

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