Unions urged Ottawa to boost staffing before passport backlog

2022/06/24 Leave a comment

More on the passport mess. As noted earlier, surge was anticipated by IRCC and ESDC/Service Canada:

Unions that represent workers at Passport Canada and Service Canada centres across the country say they asked the federal government to beef up staffing in anticipation of a summer surge in passport applications and renewals that has now materialized, causing passport offices to become overwhelmed.

“It is a disaster. Our workers are getting verbally harassed and psychologically abused by angry crowds. I believe this surge was totally predictable,” said Kevin King, national president of the Union of National Employees, which represents about 800 passport officers and is part of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

“We knew that there would be significant pressure on resources that we did not have. So even over a year ago, we started demanding that the employer hire more passport officers.”

Canadians are now finding that the rush of applications has greatly extended wait times for passport service at the precise moment when many of them are preparing to embark on travel they had postponed earlier in the pandemic. Across the country, frustration is reaching a boiling point as would-be travellers camp out at passport offices overnight, hoping to be first in line to check on their applications. In Montreal this week, police were called in as tempers flared over lengthy waits and queue-cutters at one passport location.

The passport fiasco is a result of systemic and behavioural factors.

In the first year of the pandemic, between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, there were just 363,000 passport applications, according to data provided by Employment and Social Development Canada. The following year, the number climbed to 1,273,000.

But, in April, 2022, with pandemic restrictions on the wane, the number of passport applications started surging. In the weeks since April 1 of this year, the government has already received a little under half the past year’s total: 542,000 applications, according to the EDSC data.

“Only 20 per cent of normal passport volume was received in the first two years of the pandemic,” according to a briefing note provided by ESDC.

The number of Canadians travelling abroad has increased significantly since last spring. The most recent data from Statistics Canada show that the number of return air trips by Canadians rose to 549,300 in March. 2022, from just 18,900 in the same month last year, when most of the country was still under stringent pandemic restrictions.

And that March, 2022, number doesn’t even reflect the latest easing of travel restrictions. The United States only dropped testing requirements for international visitors two weeks ago, while Canada eased testing requirements for inbound and returning travellers in late April.

“It appears that people let their passports expire during the pandemic, and then you had the southern border suddenly reopening, testing requirements lifted, and all these people wanting to travel,” Mr. King said.

Compounding the backlog is the fact that many Canadians who applied for 10-year passports when the documents were first introduced in 2013 are facing impending expiry dates. (Before then, the passport validity period was five years.) Most countries require at least six months validity on a passport for international travel.

“We were having meetings with the employer last year asking them what the plan would be with the 10-year passport renewal surge. We asked them if they were going to increase the number of sites, or extend hours. And there really wasn’t a plan presented to us,” said Crystal Warner, national executive vice-president at the Canada Employment and Immigration Union, which represents Service Canada workers.

The process of renewing passports or applying for new passports involves two departments: Service Canada and Passport Canada. Workers at both departments are employees of ESDC Canada, a federal ministry. There are only 36 Passport Canada offices across the country, but Service Canada has passport service counters at more than 300 centres.

Service Canada officers, according to Ms. Warner, can handle passport application intake, but the actual vetting, production and printing of passports is done by designated passport officers at Passport Canada. Part of the issue right now, according to both union leaders, is that there are not enough passport officers. Mr. King said his union is asking for 400 of them to be hired.

In a statement, ESDC said there were 1,500 staff members across Service Canada and Passport Canada locations before the pandemic, and that the government hired 600 additional workers in the beginning of 2022 specifically for passport processing. The ministry said it plans to begin hiring an additional 600 staff in the coming weeks, also for passport processing. The statement did not specify whether “passport processing” means intake, or whether it refers to vetting and production.

Both union leaders said they do not know where the 600 new staff members ESDC said it hired in early 2022 are now working. “Are they just additional front-line staff to assist with intake? If so, which specific offices?” Mr. King asked. “We need national passport officers with at least 12 weeks of training to deal with these very secure travel documents.”

The government has implemented an estimated-wait-time system on ESDC’s website. Now, before arriving at a passport office, an applicant can see how long they will have to wait to speak with a passport officer. As of Wednesday morning, at a number of passport locations in Toronto and Ottawa, wait times were roughly six to seven hours.

The fact that many Canadians opted to mail in their passport renewal documents during the pandemic has also contributed to long wait times, according to Ms. Warner. “Because people have not gotten a response, they’ve opted to go to locations in-person,” she said.

As to whether remote work and vaccine mandates have contributed to inefficiency in the system, both the unions and the government say those factors have been negligible. According to ESDC, just 299 employees – or about 1 per cent of the ministry’s workforce – were put on unpaid leave because they were unvaccinated.

The Union of National Employees estimates that these backlogs will continue over the next six months, as new staff begin training and the volume of passport renewals continues to pile up ahead of the first 10-year passport renewal period.

“This is not just the story of the week. It’s going to continue getting worse,” Mr. King said.

Source: Unions urged Ottawa to boost staffing before passport backlog

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En ligne avec Kafka

2022/06/21 Leave a comment

More harsh commentary on the passport wait times:

L’attente et le blocage inexcusables à Service Canada témoignent de la culture de non-responsabilisation à Ottawa.

Le moins que l’on puisse dire, c’est que la très ordinaire moyenne au bâton de Service Canada ne s’améliore pas. L’agence gouvernementale a déjà été passablement sur la sellette cette année avec des reports inexcusables pouvant atteindre jusqu’à des mois pour certains malheureux prestataires de l’assurance-emploi. Monsieur et madame Tout-le-Monde découvrent maintenant que cette apathie a gagné jusqu’aux bureaux des passeports, ce qui menace ainsi leurs vacances tout en éprouvant solidement leur patience.

Un problème de riches, le goulot d’étranglement qui paralyse la délivrance et le renouvellement des passeports d’un océan à l’autre ? Forcément. Mais pas seulement, en ce sens qu’il vient braquer les projecteurs sur tout ce qui fait défaut au point d’accès unique, et plus largement au gouvernement Trudeau, en matière de prestation de services.

Certes, les retards et les ratés du fédéral dans la prestation de service ne sont pas exclusifs aux libéraux, mais leur extrême frilosité à intervenir auprès de la fonction publique, elle, l’est. Épinglé plus tôt cette année pour des délais éhontés sur le front de l’immigration — le ministre responsable, Sean Fraser, a lui-même qualifié ces retards d’« incroyablement frustrants » —, ce gouvernement semble au surplus incapable de voir venir les crises. Pis, même une fois qu’il a les deux pieds dedans, sa courte vue l’empêche d’en prendre la pleine mesure, et donc d’intervenir en conséquence.

Il y avait quelque chose de douloureux à écouter la ministre responsable du dossier, Karina Gould, tenter de minimiser la crise il y a encore deux semaines. Mal informée, elle s’était embrouillée dans les temps d’attente, niant même jusqu’à l’existence de pratiques douteuses pourtant largement documentées sur le terrain, comme cette fameuse règle secrète voulant que seules les demandes déposées à moins de 48 heures, voire 24 heures, du départ soient traitées dans certains bureaux.

Pressée de toutes parts, la ministre Gould a finalement admis avoir dû clarifier plusieurs points la semaine dernière. Elle a en outre annoncé une panoplie de mesures (dont l’embauche prochaine de 600 personnes, des heures de service allongées, y compris le week-end, et un outil pour évaluer les délais d’attente). De belles promesses que les fonctionnaires sur le plancher, même avec la meilleure volonté du monde, n’arrivent toujours pas à concrétiser. Car il n’y a pas que les Canadiens qui font les frais de ce ratage spectaculaire, les employés de Service Canada paient aussi le prix fort de cette absence de vision.

Sur le terrain, c’est encore la débrouille qui règne (et un peu la colère, avec des interventions policières çà et là pour faire retomber la pression). Il était pourtant écrit dans le ciel que les Canadiens se bousculeraient au portillon de Service Canada sitôt que les conditions sanitaires le permettraient. Plus de deux ans de surplace pandémique donnent la bougeotte. Nous ne sommes pas les seuls. Les Américains, les Anglais ou encore les Australiens vivent des affres similaires, a mollement argué la ministre Gould. À la différence près, qu’ici, Service Canada a sciemment mis le couvercle sur la marmite.

Pendant qu’ils rêvaient d’évasion sagement confinés à la maison, les plus prévoyants qui ont voulu profiter de l’accalmie pour renouveler leur passeport ont plutôt été découragés. On a aussi fait complètement abstraction du fait que les premiers passeports valides pour dix ans (permis depuis le 1er juillet 2013) allaient bientôt massivement arriver à leur terme. Résultat : du 1er avril 2020 au 31 mars 2021, le Canada n’a délivré que 363 000 passeports, soit 20 % de son volume habituel. Normalement, Service Canada recense 5000 appels par jour en lien avec un renouvellement de passeport. Il en recense maintenant plus de 200 000.

Ces chiffres ont artificiellement mis la table pour la débandade que l’on connaît. Et les voyageurs ne sont pas au bout de leurs peines. Contre toute logique, Ottawa n’a jamais cessé de défendre bec et ongles sa très imparfaite application ArriveCAN, source de plusieurs mécontentements chez les voyageurs qui ont eu maille à partir avec elle. Pour certains, faute d’avoir rempli le formulaire à temps, cela s’est traduit par une quarantaine forcée, même si leur vaccination était en règle et que leur test PCR était nickel.

Disposé à jeter du lest, le gouvernement a annoncé que l’obligation pesant sur les voyageurs de fournir une preuve vaccinale contre la COVID-19 avant de monter à bord d’un avion ou d’un train au pays serait abrogée à partir lundi. La logique aurait voulu qu’ArriveCAN, dont la raison d’être est liée au statut vaccinal des voyageurs, passe à la trappe en même temps. Mais Ottawa la maintient, comprenne qui pourra.

Voilà de toute évidence un gouvernement plus attaché à dicter la norme qu’à mettre la main à la pâte pour la faire respecter. Cela dépasse largement l’anecdote. Réticent à intervenir auprès de la fonction publique, même quand celle-ci aurait besoin d’une direction plus affirmée, il cultive une culture de la non-responsabilisation dont témoigne cet épisode aussi navrant que kafkaïen.

Source: En ligne avec Kafka

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LILLEY: Trudeau government not telling the truth on passport delays

2022/06/20 Leave a comment

Good hard hitting column and yet another of all too many instances of government management failures. As others have noted if government cannot deliver services in a timely manner, it undermines overall trust as well as the government’s failed “Deliverology” approach from 2016.

And it is not as if the government was unaware of the increase. IRCC’s department plan 2022-23 states:

“Due to travel restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, passport demand was low for the majority of 2021–22. Forecasts predict that a recovery to pre-COVID-19 demand will begin in Spring of 2022, and that demand for passports will continue to increase over the next three years. This growth will be due in part to applications being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and an anticipated surge related to the renewal of the first wave of passports issued with a 10-year validity period.”

IRCC has the policy and program responsibility but Service Canada operates the public offices and the processing centres (and Global Affairs is responsible for international delivery). The disconnect between the plan and the lack of action to address the anticipated surge is striking.

Other areas of poor management can be seen in  the lack of passport data on open data since 2016, and the last Passport Canada report dating from 2017-18, with minimal data in both IRCC and ESDC departmental reports. The 2020 Evaluation Report highlights data weaknesses and unclear roles and responsibilities between the three departments involved.

On a personal note, when I worked at Service Canada 2004-7, we made a major effort to engage Passport Canada to provide application checking and verification through the Service Canada network (receiving agent). Our DM at the time was ambitious and insistent, wanting to roll the service across the network. In the end, a pilot project of three offices worked so well that Passport Canada overcame its resistance. But no appetite or discussion of delegating of authorities at that time:

The Trudeau government is once again lying to Canadians over why they can’t offer basic services, in this case passports.

The government is claiming there is a surge in applications when they are only dealing with about 55% of the volume they handled pre-pandemic.

According to the latest annual report of Passport Canada posted online, the department issued between 4.7 and 5.1 million passports per year from 2013 through 2018. That works out to a weekly average of between 90,000 to 98,000 passports.

In their statement Monday, the government said they had received 542,000 applications over the preceding 10 weeks, or an average of 54,200 applications a week and this is what is swamping the department.

“After two years of travel restrictions, Canada and many other countries around the world are seeing a significant surge in demand for passports. As is the case in many countries, the size and suddenness of this surge has created delays,” Minister Karina Gould said.

I get that this is more people than the department has seen since the pandemic started but staff should be able to handle 55% of normal volume. Instead, we’ve had months of long lines and delays.

Only an excuse

When I pushed the minister’s office on this, they presented a new excuse. Close to 80% of applications now come in via mail and about 25% of them have errors in the applications making the process longer. If the system were operating at capacity instead of just over half capacity, then I might buy this argument. But at this point it’s just another excuse to blame the public instead of a department that isn’t working properly.

One friend who applied for their child’s passport on April 2 still hasn’t seen it. Readers have written to me about waiting for more than seven months to get a passport they mailed away for.

Then there are the lines.

In Hamilton, a reader showed up just after 4 a.m. to find out they weren’t close to being the first person in line. In Victoria, the line started forming at 2 a.m. and in Prince Edward Island, they only wished they could line up at a local office instead of having to drive to Halifax or Moncton.

Truth about the lines

The people standing in lines outside of offices are doing so because they have travel booked in the next 45 days and the standard application process can’t handle them.

One gentleman I spoke to this week outside of Toronto’s downtown passport office said he had initially applied at a regular Service Canada office. After nearly completing the process, he was told his passport would go in the mail by the end of August, after his trip started. He was forced to stand in line for hours to get inside before navigating the bureaucracy to get his travel documents faster.

Canadians can normally turn to their Members of Parliament for help when they have trouble with an application or need something expedited. There’s a special line for MPs and their staff to call when helping deal with passport files.

John Brassard, the Conservative MP for Barrie-Innisfil, emailed to say his staff waited on that special line for five hours one day this week followed by an extra two hours on the line with the agent to process the files.

These problems have been going on for months and the government is only acting to deal with them now due to media and opposition pressure. It’s another example of the Trudeau government not working properly and not dealing with issues until they blow up.

Instead of wasting time trying to mislead Canadians by blaming this on a surge of applications Minister Gould should get busy whipping her department back into shape. If she can’t do that, she should resign.

Source: LILLEY: Trudeau government not telling the truth on passport delays

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Mills: Just another day in Canada’s passport purgatory

2022/06/18 Leave a comment

Useful account. Positive note – the patience of applicants and the “kind, helpful and patient the front-line passport officers”:

The sun was barely over the treetops when I drove into the parking lot of the Passport Canada office in the Rideauview Mall on Meadowlands Drive. It was 5:45 Monday morning and the line was already snaking along the side of the building facing Prince of Wales, and around the corner. I found my place in line, extracted a novel from my tote bag, and sat down cross-legged on the ground.

The office itself wouldn’t open until 8:30 a.m. There were already more than 30 people ahead of me.

I had known my visit to the passport office would be a lengthy one. For weeks, media outlets had chronicled the chaos: the long wait times, the desperate travellers who camped out overnight at passport offices in hopes of getting their documents quickly.

I had snacks, a bottle of water and a variety of reading material. As the chill of the morning seeped into my bones from the cold concrete, I wished I had thought to bring a folding chair, as many others had. But at least it wasn’t raining. I’d also been able to book an entire day off work to devote to my mission: getting our daughters’ passports in time for a weeklong holiday in Maine.

My family’s adventures with Passport Canada started in February when our passports expired. We got new photos taken, and filled out renewal applications for my husband and myself, as well as brand-new adult passport applications for our twin daughters, who were then 17. We dutifully mailed them off a full nine weeks before a planned trip to New York City in May.

April came and went with no passports. By the beginning of May, we were starting to worry. We had a flight booked to New York on May 21 — an early birthday gift for the girls, who would turn 18 the following week. I decided to phone Passport Canada.

The first time, I called six times just to get on the line and there were 187 people ahead of me on hold. The second time, I called 35 times to get on the line and there were more than 200 people ahead of me. When I finally got through, I learned that my daughters’ applications had been rejected because we had not provided sufficient proof of Canadian citizenship … even though we sent back their old child passports. I had failed to include their original birth certificates.

We didn’t make it to New York. There was no way, however, that we were going to miss out on Maine, our favourite summer destination since the girls were little, and which we hadn’t seen in two years. This is what had brought me to Rideauview Mall.

They let us into the building around 7:30 a.m. The line re-formed. It started at the Passport Canada office door, stretched to the Prince of Wales entrance, and curved around and along the opposite wall. A young woman in line who must have been a camp counsellor at some point took on the role of directing new people who came through the door (those poor folks who thought an hour early was sufficient!) towards the end of the line.

I overheard people saying they were travelling that week. Even the next day. Two young men came through the door just before 8 a.m. hauling enormous rolling suitcases. There were families with young children and others with elderly relatives. One young guy near the end of the line recorded a video for his social media followers. I caught the words: “No, this is not a third-world country. This is Canada.”

And yet, there was a sense of camaraderie. Everyone was in the same boat, chatting with their line-mates about where they were going and when and sometimes about what had gone wrong with their applications. Many were clearly anxious, but also very civilized. I couldn’t help feeling thankful to be living in Canada rather than, say, Florida.

Finally, the office opened. The line advanced. Immediately, Passport Canada staffers began shouting information in both official languages, triaging people based on their departure dates, separating those who were picking up completed passports or whose files had been transferred from the walk-ins, and confirming (repeatedly) that everyone had proof they were travelling within the next 45 business days.

Eight hours and 15 minutes later, I left the office clutching a receipt that would allow me to pick up my daughters’ passports in 14 days. I had exhausted my snack supply, read 200 pages of my novel, and was consistently impressed with how kind, helpful and patient the front-line passport officers managed to be in the face of so much stress. I also had a lot of time to ponder what might make the process more efficient:

• Hire and train passport officers to be on standby even if they typically work in other areas so they can be pulled in temporarily at times like this. That would allow for the extension of office hours, which would help clear the backlog.

• Allow Canadian citizens who hold child passports to upgrade to adult passports through a renewal process rather than having them fill out a brand-new adult passport application as though they’ve never held a Canadian passport before. I’m certain this is the cause of a lot of errors and delays, as it was with us.

• Allow Canadian citizens who hold a current adult passport that’s about to expire to renew online. This would force the government to come up with some acceptable process for the use and verification of digital photos, but isn’t it past time for that?

• Develop a new electronic passport form that flags obvious errors, like not including an address or postal code for your guarantors while you’re filling it out (rather than having the passport officers flag it for you when you get to the office).

Canadian passports are precious things and issuing them is a basic function of our federal government. We’ve got to get it right. The front-line officers are doing their job exceptionally well under these circumstances. Now it’s up to our elected representatives to ensure this situation never happens again.

Lara Mills is a professor in the public relations program at Algonquin College.

Source: Mills: Just another day in Canada’s passport purgatory

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Federal government now posting passport wait times online as long lineups continue

2022/06/15 Leave a comment

Interesting reference to consideration being given to issuing passports along with citizenship. Given that IRCC is responsible for both, eminently doable and makes sense, but not a high priority for IRCC and the government.

But this would be a real tangible service improvement for new Canadians, and an opportunity to integrate citizenship and passport pathways:

Passport offices are still dealing with a surge of applications, the minister responsible says, and wait times are “far from acceptable.”

Karina Gould says those long wait times are her top priority, but she cannot say when things may return to normal.

The federal government says 72 per cent of Canadians who apply for a passport in any manner will get it within 40 business days, while 96 per cent of people who submit their application in person will get their passport within 10 business days.

The government’s website now includes estimated wait times for visits to passport offices, updated three times a day, to help people plan.

On Monday afternoon you could expect to wait four hours and 45 minutes at the Ottawa location, three hours in Toronto, and six hours and 45 minutes in Vancouver.

Gould says her department is considering further changes, including moving the application process online.

She also says her department is working with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to determine if there’s a way to issue passports to people as they get their citizenship instead of requiring a separate application. Both examples will take time to implement.

There are typically between two million and five million passport applications per year in Canada. During the pandemic, only about 1.5 million passports were issued over two years.

As a result, passport staff were given other work during that time and Service Canada is now trying to shift that work elsewhere.

And while Gould says 2022 is on track to be at the high end of the typical range, close to five million, “we’ve typically been able to manage that volume throughout the year but we’re seeing the surge happening all at the same time, which of course is leading to long lineups.”

Australia’s passport processing times are six weeks, according to Gould, while it takes 10 weeks to get a passport in the United Kingdom and 11 weeks to get one in the United States.

Source: Federal government now posting passport wait times online as long lineups continue

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Mason: The gong show at our passport offices is inexcusable

2022/05/28 Leave a comment

Yet another backlog at IRCC, the department responsible for Passport Canada.

When multiculturalism moved from Canadian Heritage to IRCC in 2008, the then hope within the Citizenship Branch was that the addition of Multiculturalism would rebalance to some extent the IRCC focus on immigration.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen, and citizenship remained the “poor cousin” compared to other IRCC programs and then of course the program moved back to Canadian Heritage and the Liberal government increased its funding.

It appears that the move of passport to IRCC more than 10 years ago has similarly resulted in relative program neglect, an even “poorer cousin.” Telling, as I have noted before, that IRCC does not include current passport statistics on open data:

As COVID-19 vaccines began to do their work last year, more Canadians began to venture out and allow themselves to imagine vacations to exotic locales – or even just to the United States.

Surely, the federal government was aware of this. It must have known that the demand for travel after two years of being cooped up at home would be unprecedented. Airlines began preparing for this eventuality months ago, when it was evident COVID-related travel restrictions were being lifted around the world. You would assume the federal government would have brainstormed as well: What should we be prepared for, when the travel surge occurs?

If anyone in government had been thinking, they would have foreseen the mad march to Service Canada’s passport offices we have recently witnessed – of Canadians seeking to apply for and renew their passports – and come up with a strategy to respond to it. After all, these applications were way down during the pandemic – in no small part because many Service Canada offices were temporarily closed at points during the pandemic – and many of these documents have expired in the interim. It should have been plainly evident there would be overwhelming demand.

The numbers now bear it out: Service Canada issued 363,000 passports from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021, a number that jumped to more than 1.27 million in the following fiscal year. (It’s also been reported that the number of passports processed is up 350 per cent over last year). Before the pandemic, Service Canada was getting about 5,000 calls a day related to passport renewals; today, that number has shot up to more than 200,000.

But it’s clear now that whatever plan there was to deal with an inevitable avalanche of applicants was wholly inadequate. Maybe “inept” is a better word. Perhaps “complete disaster” more aptly fits the bill.

Of course, we have seen government incompetence before. But if there was a government-incompetence Hall of Fame, Service Canada’s response to this surge of passport demand would have to rank right up there.

The stories: wow.

Citizens have been lining up for days outside some passport offices. To no one’s surprise, this has led to tensions at some locations. When some of those who had been camped out for days outside an office in Surrey, B.C., noticed little to no movement in the line, they attempted to go inside to see what the issue was. They were met by security, and things escalated to the point police were called – surprise, surprise.

Women with babies in strollers have had to stand in line for hours, with no place to sit down. Pleasant, elderly commissionaires haven’t really been able to give people reliable information about how long if might be before they get processed, or even if they will. There have even been reports of people paying homeless people to hold their place in line.

The government agency has reported that it has hired more than 600 additional staff to handle the extra volume, and yet it does not seem to have alleviated the lineups at many of the most popular centres. People report going inside and seeing only a fraction of the kiosks open, because COVID-19 protocols and social distancing guidelines have kept many stations closed. Strangely, everyone in those same passport centres, including staff, can meet at a bar or restaurant afterward, maskless, and raise a toast to the incompetence and irrationality of all those involved in this utter shemozzle.

The government says you can still get a passport in five days if you apply in person at one of the centres. What it doesn’t say is that you might need to take a week off work so you can sit outside in the rain waiting for your chance to get inside one.

For many, new passports can take up to 12 weeks to get, according to the Travel Industry Council of Ontario.

I realize that having to wait in line to renew a passport seems like the mother of all first-world problems. There may not be a lot of sympathy for people who might not be able to go on their Caribbean cruise because they didn’t anticipate a three-month delay in getting their passports renewed.

That’s not the point.

The point is there are all sorts of legitimate reasons for wanting and needing a passport beyond luxury travel. And people who need those passports shouldn’t have to compete in a real-life version of Survivor to get them from our own government.

Ottawa was completely drunk at the wheel here. And it still hasn’t been able to figure out how to design a system that can eliminate these unconscionable wait times and delays.

The country deserves better.

Source: The gong show at our passport offices is inexcusable

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New passport processing system suspended after glitches, security gaps revealed

2015/10/15 Leave a comment

The normal risks of moving to a new system compounded by likely political direction to implement by a certain date:

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has suspended its use of a new system to process passport applications after CBC News reported about widespread glitches with the program.

The department confirmed it is “pausing” the processing of passports through the Global Case Management System in order to incorporate “lessons learned” during the testing phase. Citizenship and Immigration is also taking time to evaluate feedback from employees, said spokesman Remi Lariviere.

At least 1,500 Canadian passports have been produced under a flawed new system that opened the door to fraud and tampering, according to documents obtained by CBC/Radio-Canada.

Internal records from Citizenship and Immigration revealed the processing program was rushed into operation on May 9, despite dire warnings from senior officials that it was not ready and could present new security risks.

Lariviere insisted that no passports have been issued with security gaps.

“This is a regular part of good product management,” he said. “To be clear, at no point has the integrity or security of passport issuance been compromised.

Department warned about risks

Since the launch of the new system, officials have been scrambling to fix hundreds of glitches and seal security gaps. Weeks after the new process was brought on line, there were calls to stop production.

Those recommendations were ignored, and the passports continued to be issued in the first phase of production under the new system, designed to enhance security and integrate with other global programs.

Numerous reports show that during a period of several weeks, it was possible for Citizenship and Immigration employees to alter the photo on a passport after it had been approved. And there are numerous reports of discrepancies between information contained in the database and what actually appeared on a passport.

Source: New passport processing system suspended after glitches, security gaps revealed – Politics – CBC News

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