Canadians eager to travel following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions are facing long waits to get a passport, with hundreds camped out for days in Montreal, where police were called to tame the angry crowd.
Similar scenes have played out across the country, while delays at airport security checkpoints for flights have compounded public outrage.
“It’s just a disaster, you can’t call it anything else,” said Cheikh Diop, 34, who waited almost 24 hours in the Montreal line to get his daughter’s passport.
“We waste time, we have no life. People need to travel,” he said, adding that the surge in demand should have been anticipated by the government.
Mylene Lemmel, 41, said she had “slept here, in the rain” to pick up her passport for a flight the next day.
She applied for the travel document in early April, and described the scene outside the Montreal office as “chaotic.”
“It’s anxiety-provoking, it’s not easy,” she added.
Some people said they were being paid by the hour to wait on behalf of others.
Police were called in to control the line that spilled onto a busy downtown street.
The minister responsible for passport offices, Karina Gould, has faced a barrage of criticism about the delays. The long lines, she told parliament on Thursday, are “not acceptable.”
She said that 1,200 new staff, as well as temporary transfers from other government departments would help reduce the backlog.
“People are excited to travel again, and so I understand where this is coming from, and we’re trying to do everything we can to solve the situation,” Gould said.
She said that urgent requests for passports have risen from about 5 percent of applications prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to almost 50 percent now.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese