Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Pierce Schoel thought he might be able to avoid a long wait at the passport office in Kitchener, Ont. by going in the middle of the day.
He was surprised to discover line-ups out the door. The security guard told people they'd likely be waiting two, even three hours. But with a long-awaited trip to Mexico on the horizon -- his first overseas trip since the pandemic began -- he stuck it out.
"I've been waiting to travel for quite a long time," Schoel said after applying for his passport Friday. "I'm ready to get back out there and start traveling."
He's not the only one. Schoel and his fellow travellers in line may be part of the deluge of passport applications Canadian officials are braced for.
Urgent passport services have been available throughout the pandemic, but with borders closed and public health measures in place most people had little use for them.
Service Canada issued more than 2.3-million passports the year before the pandemic began, but handed out only 363,225 the year after that.
Already demand is climbing, with 467,541 passports issued this year as of Sept. 30.
The Canadian government still recommends against non-essential travel outside of the country because of the risk of contracting COVID-19 abroad and bringing it home.
But with the U.S. border set to reopen to vaccinated travellers on Nov. 8, the federal government is preparing for a rise in demand for passport services.
"As travel restrictions are lifted, Service Canada is preparing for an increase in demand for passport services," read a statement from Employment and Social Development Canada.
The department's website said people can expect to get their passports about 20 days after they apply at Service Canada, but some people report waits of just over a month.
The government is closely monitoring the increased demand, according to Mikaela Harrison, the press secretary of Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Ahmed Hussen.
The government has protocols in place to continue to provide passport services to Canadians within service standards, she said in a statement.
"I think I gave myself enough time but I am happy that my parents told me to check when my passport expired, because I honestly didn't even think about it until they said so," said Schoel.
As vaccination rates rise across the globe, so will traveller confidence, according to Tourism Economics, a global research firm.
"We expect a more significant easing of restrictions to follow and traveller confidence to expand, with international arrivals set to regain pre-crisis levels by 2024," said the firm's June 2021 Global Travel Service report.
The firm expects international travel to remain at about 59 per cent below pre-crisis levels, but said there remains significant pent up demand.
Meanwhile the government is reporting higher than average call volumes related to passport applications, and has urged people not to visit Service Canada unless absolutely necessary.
The government has also extended the eligibility period for renewals, so passports that expired on or after Feb. 1, 2019 can be renewed.
That way Canadians can wait to renew their passports until they actually have plans to leave the country.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2021.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.