Are job cuts impacting passport wait times?

The new Canadian passport is unveiled at an event at the Ottawa International Airport in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 10, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

After laying off more than 800 Service Canada employees last month, Ottawa says the number of passport applications has stabilized, according to Noovo Info.

Nearly 400 people were affected by these cuts in Quebec. Friday was their last day on the job.

According to Alisha Kang, president of the Union of National Employees, the wave of layoffs will have a significant impact on Canadians applying for passports.

“It’s difficult for members of the public to know how long it will take. You’ll walk into a passport office and there will be a queue,” she says. “These are major cuts in terms of services to Canadians.”

However, Service Canada is seeing a downward trend in passport applications.

During the pandemic, in 2020, only 3,000 passport applications were made in May. That number jumped to nearly 470,000 applications for the same month in 2024.

This year, 100,000 fewer people tried to renew their travel documents at the same time.

Éric Boissonneault, vice-president of the Quebec Travel Agents Association, explains the decline in part by the fact most Canadians apply for a 10-year passport.

“So we’re in a transitional period where people don’t need to renew their passports every five years as they did before,” he says.

He also mentions that travel agencies have seen a slight decline in sales, which could also explain the drop in passport applications at Service Canada.

Other factors could include inflation and the boycott of the United States due to the trade war, which is disrupting Canadians’ travel habits.

Currently, the wait time to obtain a passport has been reduced by 55 per cent compared to 2024, but it remains to be seen whether the layoff of 800 employees will have an impact on future wait times.

With files from Noovo Info’s Lila Mouch and Laurie Gervais