Canada’s passport ranked eighth most powerful in new report

CTV National News: Plan to tackle passport waits Glen McGregor reports on Ottawa’s new plan to speed up long delays in obtaining a new passport in some provinces.

Canada’s passport retained its eighth place spot on a ranking of international travel documents, as passports for three Asian countries continue to dominate the listing.

According to the latest passport index report by London-based immigration consultancy firm Henley & Partners, Canada’s passport ranking shared its spot with Australia, Greece, Czech Republic and Malta.

Canada registered the eighth spot on the list in 2021, moving up from the ninth position in 2020. Its pinnacle was reached in 2014 when the Canadian passport ranked second highest on the list.

As of 2022, Canadian passport holders can visit 185 countries visa-free. Japan’s passport was ranked as the most valuable for travellers in 2022, with holders able to access 193 countries visa-free, followed by Singapore and South Korea tying for second place, whose passport holders have access to 192 countries.

Other higher ranking countries mainly included European Union members, with Germany and Spain tied for third place, while Finland, Italy, and Luxembourg tied for fourth. Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden tied for fifth.

The U.K. and the U.S. both slipped one spot, to sixth and seventh, respectively, while Afghanistan remained at the bottom of the list, with its citizens only being able to travel to 27 countries without a visa.

However, the freedom a passport can offer doesn’t necessarily indicate travel habits, Henley & Partners said in a release.

While Asian countries rank high on the scale of passport power, they’re less likely to use it due to their region’s stricter approach to COVID-19, the firm states, with their international travel demand still less than a quarter of pre-COVID levels.

But, the travel mobility markets in North America and Europe have recovered to about 60 per cent of their prior levels, according to Henley & Partners.

Canada’s national airports have faced months of chronic issues, including long lines, cancelled flights and lost luggage, prompting calls for immediate solutions.

Staffing shortages have forced Air Canada to cancel thousands of flights, with the airline announcing that it will be reducing flights in July and August.

“The shock of the pandemic was unlike anything seen in our lifetimes, and the recovery and reclamation of our travel freedoms and our innate instinct to move and migrate will take time,” Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners, said in a release.

While several factors go into assessing a country’s visa-free access, the consulting firm said there is a strong correlation between a nation’s passport power and its Global Peace Index score.

Canada ranked 12th on 2022’s Global Peace Index, just under Switzerland and Japan, with a score of 1.39 out of five. The lower the score, the more peaceful the country.

“Now more than ever, it's a mistake to think of a passport as merely a travel document that allows you to get from A to B,” Stephen Klimczuk-Massion, Fellow at Oxford University's Saïd Business School, said in a release.

“The relative strength or weakness of a particular national passport directly affects the quality of life for the passport holder and may even be a matter of life and death in some circumstances."