In a report to Parliament, the passport office graded its performance and rated itself a solid 'B' for customer satisfaction.According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the claim was made in response to the chaos at passport offices, where there were record-breaking lineups and police were called to manage frustrated and angry crowds.“The department developed and implemented measures to mitigate operational pressures, thus supporting service delivery partners to successfully eliminate the processing backlog and return to service standards,” passport managers wrote in a Departmental Results report to parliament.Managers gave themselves an 81% rating for the “percentage of Canadian travel document applications that met service standards” and an 85% rating for the “percentage of passport applicants who report they were satisfied overall with the services they received.”It's worth noting neither of these claims was documented. The previous year, the passport office had an expenditure of $412 million.In a February 10 internal memo, managers stated half of the employees worked from home and approximately a fifth of the workforce had resigned. These factors contributed to record delays in passport processing.“Processing centres remained constrained with staff limited to 30% to 50% capacity on site,” said the memo Processing Passports And Service Delivery. “A 19.9% departure rate was also seen for the same period for passport employees.”Passport offices experienced significant challenges, with five to six-hour lineups. In Montreal, managers had to call the police twice and set up crowd control barriers to manage and calm the large number of applicants.Canadians who were renewing their passports by mail were told that they might have to wait for three months or even longer to receive their renewed passports.Managers cleared the backlog by hiring 1,391 new employees. The payroll at the passport office grew to 2,600 staff, “up by over 50% since April 2022,” said the memo. No manager was fired.During his testimony on February 7 at the Senate National Finance committee, Budget Officer Yves Giroux cited the passport office as an example of a "broken" federal government.“I go back to the passports,” said Giroux. “We have hired that many hundreds of public servants. Okay, but when will I get my damn passport? That’s the outcome. That’s what we are after.”“I’d be curious to see in the next Departmental Results report what Passport Canada will claim was their achievement,” said Giroux. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they claim some sort of success despite the disaster we’ve seen the last couple of months. There is clear, clear room for enhanced leadership.”“I think if you asked anybody who asked recently for a passport, Employment Insurance, Old Age Security and the list goes on, they are probably very well aware the level of service Canadians are getting is not what one could expect from a world-class public service,” testified Giroux.“There needs to be a crack of the whip big time.”
