Passport

Posted on January 18, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized |

I went to Canada Place submit my application for a passport this morning. Despite repeated warnings about obscenely long lineups, I went. I went because I need my passport by the end of March at the latest, and there is a fair backlog to be processed, due to new US travel requirements requiring Canadians to have a passport to enter the country by air [1]. I was told after being processed, that I would probably receive my passport in five weeks. That’s a fair bit longer than the usual 10 business days. I’m glad I didn’t wait any longer.

Despite the horror stories I’ve heard over the past couple of weeks, it actually wasn’t too painful. Along with some of the other fine folks who will be travelling to Cuba with me in the spring, I went at just after 5:00am to line up. Despite having arrived nearly three hours before the Passport Office opened, we were not the first people in line. There were, in fact, at least forty people ahead of us. We waited in line with novels, coffee, and portable media players for the next few hours until the office opened.

Once the office opened, the line moved surprisingly quickly. I had expected to be in line for several hours even after the office had opened. Instead, were we into the office with ten minutes. We were out of the office by 8:30am. Not counting the time we spent waiting for the office to open, we were in and out in half an hour. However, if we hadn’t arrive as early as we did, that wouldn’t have been the case. We would have been waiting for several hours and, depending on how late we arrived (the line essentially filled up the entire first floor lobby area of Canada Place by 5:30am) we might not have gotten in at all.

In addition to having arrived early, we had all completed our paperwork in advance, using the ePass system. One of my comrades for the morning was informed by the person who pre-processed her that, by doing this, we had saved ourselves at least an hour and a half of waiting time to get to the final processing stage [2]. I would advise that anyone planning to get a passport in the near future get an ePass and fill out the forms online. And arrive at Canada Place at an ungodly hour so as to avoid being the two-hundredth person in line that day. These two simple things will save you a great deal of pain, and will get you through the process much, much faster.

All-in-all, it was not nearly as painful as I’d expected–even if I did have to wake up at four in the morning to get it done.
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[1] Currently, only air travel requires a passport. Ground and sea travel does not, though it likely will by 2008.

[2] That’s right, you have to get processed before you can get processed. Bureaucracies! (Admittedly, this does help speed the process, since the pre-processors correct any errors your may have made in your forms, so that the actual processing can be done more quickly.)

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