Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Canadians travelling in the next 24 to 48 hours are being given priority at some passport offices.
The move comes amid widespread reports of long lines and growing frustration with passport processing delays, which have seen Canadians miss flights, cancel trips and even camp out overnight to secure their travel documents.
"Before it was first come, first served," Ferdinand Pollak told CTV News from a growing line in Montreal for those departing in the next 24 hours. "Now they change their mind, they go by departure time and dates."
On a federal government website, it states “We have new measures to help manage wait times at passport offices in Toronto, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Montreal and Vancouver. We’ll prioritize those who need a passport within 48 hours. We’ll make arrangements for people with longer term travel plans to be served at other locations."
Despite being given priority, others remain uncertain in Montreal, which is facing the longest waits in the country.
"We travel tomorrow at nine-and-a-half so we don't know if we will have our passport on time or not," Dekra Bouissi told CTV News from a snaking line of camping chairs.
On top of missing work and scrambling for childcare, expensive flights are at stake. Others are urgently trying to see loved ones before it's too late.
"We really need to go to my homeland in South America, because my dad is fading, he is fading fast," Ludwing Perea Melendez told CTV New from London, Ont.
His wife and five children camped out in the family van, determined to be the first in line Monday morning after being turned away last week.
"Our kids slept there like sardines," Perea Melendez said.
In Fredericton, Richard Caguioa told CTV News he had gone to great lengths, or about 2,000 km, in the hopes of getting a passport.
"I flew from Iqaluit, Nunavut because my son's passport hasn't arrived yet from two months ago or three, almost three," he said from a line.
On Monday, the federal government announced the creation of a new task force to help tackle major delays with immigration applications and passport processing.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
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.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
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.