Passport

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Getting one is crazy these days. I had one once, it expired 7 years ago. My brother applied for passports for his family 9-10 weeks ago for a trip 2 weeks from now. Can't get a hold of Passport Canada for any kind of update so him and his fiancee got in line at 11pm last night and just got told there are 250 people ahead of them with appointments blah blah so no guarantee anyone in line will be seen.

There are zero appointments to book. I need a passport for August. There was a news story circulating yesterday about a woman that flew to Edmonton on a $90 flight to get a passport as there are no lines there. With the price of gas, it'd cost me the same in fuel to drive ~250kms out of town and wait in line somewhere else IF there's somewhere to wait that close.. others are driving Much Farther, like 800-900km each way.

I think I'm going to have to look into catching a flight to Edmonton or maybe Calgary and dropping it at a passport office there vs. even attempting the overnight wait here if there are dozens of people on the sidewalk overnight with no guarantee of being served. Especially if it's under a hundred bucks and you're there in a couple hours, boom, get 'er done, maybe go have coffee with my Great Uncle Eldon and cousin Chris - spend a night even ? and then fly back home. Kill a day or two, but so what if it gets the job done vs. the extremely high stress and anxiety of trying to do it here.

I guess the pent up demand for travel is highest in BC where so many people regularly travel to Asia and other places. There's a lot of wealth here, so some people can afford to travel.. there's also a lot of "fake wealth," here in terms of real estate values that skyrocketed.. so chances are there are a bunch of people tapping into their home equity like piggy banks to go take family vacations post covidtimeslockdowns. Some combination of all those factors I guess.

Kinda nuts that there's a Service Canada office 5 mins from my house and a proper Passport Canada office a 20 min drive away but it looks like I'm going to have to pack a bag and head for the airport and skip over a Province in order to get seen at a Passport Canada office.. I guess Alberta is the place to go do that because their entire economy took a giant crap well before covid started so there aren't a lot of people with cash waiting to go travelling. Wild times.

Crazy, indeed.

Reminds me - I should update my passport, too. SHTF seems unlikely now but maybe some sudden opportunity for travel appears.

Some woman on my brother's FB posted and said they never expected everyone to apply at once.. lol umm wut ? WTF did they think was gonna happen when travel wasn't allowed for ~3 years and a lot of passports expired and then all of the sudden it's allowed again and ppl wanna travel ??????? Only the federal government couldn't have seen this coming.

^ Just like our road service seems surprised every winter

I'm gonna wait a day to find out what my brother's success is or isn't. If he waited all night and still couldn't get served, I think I'll phone relatives in Edmonton and ask them if I can stay a night next week if necessary and then just fly out there and wait in line early morning to get into a Passport Canada office.

Another option is to pay someone to wait in line here.. my cousin is seeking that particular gig right now - but - if my brother waited overnight for nothing there's no sense in waiting myself or paying someone to wait.

Yet another option would be to pack my saddlebags and a backpack and hit the highway on my motorcycle and ride to Edmonton over ~2 days, wait in line, get 'er done, then ride back.. but that would cost approximately $600 in gas alone and it's as cheap as $87 to fly soooo.. if I go I'll fly.

That sucks, GF!

I'm not sure how bad it is here. My daughter renewed her passport in the spring. She had an appointment but arrived to find a 3-4 hour wait with hundreds of people having the same appointment time. She has a physical disability and a wheelchair parking permit so she showed that to the guard people so she could go in the line for people with disabilities. Even then she had to wait a very long time and they couldn't give her a chair.

Make sure you renew for ten years so you won't have to deal with this again!

Good luck!

I never had a passport. I find it ironic so many Canadians are trying to get passports right now. With the price of gas rapidly skyrocketing I would except the cost of flying & driving outside the country to be getting too expensive for lots of people to afford. Lots of people in the US are majorly b!tching about gas prices going up but there are still tons of cars on the roads everyday. If people really could not afford the gas, they should only be driving to important things like work, school, grocery shopping, & medical appointments & such. If people would start driving less, the price of gas would go down due to the oil tycoons sales going down. Your kewl GF, I know you work hard & make decent money for it. I'm talking about the people who have very little money or the people who have a bit of money to waist on frivolous things but pretend they're too broke to afford essential stuff. If people really cant afford the gas, they should not be driving to places they don't need to go to & spending money on things they don't really need while they're there. People should not be planning to travel for vacations if they really cant afford to pay for their needed gas

Passports are required as identification for a lot of federal and government programs (including disability benefits).

People need passports whether they're travelling, or not.

I do agree with you about wasting unnecessary money though.

I did not know that about passports. I thought they were mostly for traveling outside the country. Here most people use their drivers license or state ID for those types of things. I cant drive so I have state ID. Things sure are different in different areas.

There are lots of times I've needed a passport for ID. DL isn't always applicable because lots of people don't drive. I don't know that there's anything similar to "state ID" here. Even our Health Cards aren't sufficient ID for most situations because they don't show our address on them.

I needed a passport to change my name, to apply for federal disability, and to apply for my pension.
I'm retiring next week!

In the United States, you get "state ID's" from the same agency that gives you drivers licenses. Normally, people who don't have drivers licenses get state ID's instead. You have to go through a similar rigamorale at the Department of Motor Vehicles offices----except that you don't have to take the written and road tests.

There's no "provincial ID"?

I've never had one as I never had a need or desire to travel.

No, unless you count provincial health cards.
They are seldom accepted as ID and you actually need them in order to get a passport.
For years health cards didn't even have photos so they were quite useless as ID.

Our health insurance cards don't have pictures & aren't really IDs either except they can be used as a secondary form of ID. DMVs & other government offices sometimes require secondary forms of ID. I needed a secondary form when I moved to Vermont & got my state ID here.
Congrats on retiring BTW

Thank you.
I'm going to lose money by retiring instead of being on Disability, but I'm still glad to reach the milestone.

Our health cards have photos on them now, but they're still considered secondary.
Most people get passports for their babies as soon as they're born, even if they aren't travelling.

It's just the easiest type of ID to have.

They need to be renewed every 5 or 10 years (your choice).

Expiry dates were forgiven for two years because of Covid lockdowns.
The passport offices were closed and it was very hard to renew.

It seems there's a huge backlog now, especially with people starting to travel again.