Minister of Citizens' Services Terry Beech rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 3, 2024.PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press
Passport applications will be processed within 30 business days, or Canadians will get their money back, the federal government announced Friday.
Terry Beech, the Minister of Citizens’ Services, also promised that from this year Canadians would be able to renew their passports online, in a rollout of a pilot program introduced in December.
Launching the federal government’s first State of Service report – a report card on the delivery of services from passports, to employment insurance and dental benefits – Mr. Beech said 99 per cent of Canadians who applied for a passport in person now receive it within 10 business days.
Ottawa’s new passport service guarantee, to come into effect later this year, will mean that any complete passport application, whether it is submitted in person, online or by mail, must be processed within 30 business days, or applicants will get a full refund of the fees.
The new service standard follows chaos in Canada’s passport processing system after the COVID pandemic, with huge backlogs and queues at passport offices in 2022, leading to missed flights and cancelled holidays.
Canadians waited outside Service Canada offices for days – with some sitting in queues in the middle of the night – to renew their passports after a resurgence in travel when COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.
Calls to Service Canada offices increased to 18 million in 2022, compared to 4.7 million calls the previous year.
Since 2021, there has been a 315-per-cent surge in the number of passports issued, with 5.4 million passports expected to be issued this year, compared to 1.3 million in 2021 and 3.3 million in 2022.
Mr. Beech also announced plans to extend a program allowing migrants to Canada to get a Social Insurance Number straight after stepping off the plane.
The SIN@Landing Program, in operation at international airports including Toronto Pearson, Montréal Trudeau, Vancouver and Calgary, allows migrants to apply for a social insurance number (SIN) on site and obtain it before leaving the airport.
At Toronto’s Pearson Airport, 105,307 SINs were issued in 2023-24.
“SIN@Landing helps reduce the number of clients that stand in line at Service Canada Centres, while providing a smoother and more straightforward arrival experience to newcomers,” the report says. “In 2025-26, Service Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will start to introduce SIN@Entry, an integrated and automated bundle of immigration services and SIN services.”
“It is estimated that this one measure could reduce in-person visits to Service Canada Centres by as much as 50 per cent, which would also reduce wait times for clients accessing other programs in person.”
Mr. Beech said new technology, such as AI automation and machine learning, has led to savings and efficiencies at Service Canada, including in estimating Employment Insurance benefits for people who have lost their jobs.
At a press conference in Ottawa, Mr. Beech expressed confidence that Service Canada will be able to cope with a predicted rise in EI claims as a result of job losses following the imposition of tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Canada is absolutely ready to deal with any outcome,” he said. “We have been preparing for months. I have a high degree of confidence, especially given that we have some of the highest service standards today that we’ve had in years within the program.”
In 2023-24, the EI Call Centre answered approximately 6 million calls with an average wait time of four minutes, compared to an average of 18 minutes for the same period in 2022-23.
The report said that since the launch of the Canadian Dental Care Plan in 2023, for families with net incomes under $90,000 who do not have private dental insurance, 3.3 million people have so far been deemed eligible.
There have been more than 3.8 million applications (as of January, 2025) for the dental benefit, including from seniors, with more than 86-per-cent approved for coverage.