Lineup hours long outside Kitchener, Ont., passport office as Ottawa assures it will get better

These days, the journey to a fun and relaxing time in another part of the world can begin with a long and tiresome wait at the local passport office.

"I'm extremely disappointed," said Veena Sultan, a Milton, Ont., resident who drove first to the passport office in Mississauga, waited over seven hours in line, then decided to drive to Kitchener to continue waiting in another long line.

"I cannot get an appointment online at all. I've been checking every day," she told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo. "The wait times are ridiculous. It made it sound like online that everything is sorted and they're trying to help us. But I don't find it helpful at all."

She tried to beat the line in Kitchener by getting to the office at 5:20 a.m. on Wednesday.

"I've been standing in line outside. It's been pretty cold. I've got a friend here with me so we could take turns [waiting]."

There are long lineups at Passport Canada offices across the country, as tens of thousands of people look to get their hands on travel documents for their summer plans.

Kpenu Chokor got in line Wednesday at 7 a.m., an hour and a half before the office opens.

"I'm attending international school, so I needed to get my passport in before September... I have water, I ordered some food to eat... and I've also got a chair to sit," she said with a laugh.

Vishadeep Gill was at the end of a long lineup on Wednesday morning. He drove to Kitchener from Brampton, hoping to find a shorter line outside the office.

"I think [the government] can do a lot better — at least open a new office," he said. "I don't understand how the lines are this long. Is everyone renewing their passport all at once?"

Karina Gould, federal minister in charge of Service Canada, which handles the administration of passports, said that's true in a way.

"We did anticipate there would be a surge in demand, and that's while we started hiring hundreds of people last October, said Gould in an interview with The Morning Edition's host Craig Norris. 

"But we clearly didn't put measures in place that would sufficiently meet that demand, and we didn't anticipate how high it would be and how much volume we would get at the same time."

Gould said a new triage system is helping people with looming flight deadlines.