As Service Canada sharpens its budget axe, nearly 800 passport workers across the country are bracing for pink slips. The announcement, delivered to employees yesterday afternoon, marks one of the largest federal job reductions since the pandemic backlog crisis that left thousands of Canadians waiting months for travel documents.
Sources within the Public Service Alliance of Canada confirm that management called staff into virtual meetings Thursday, where employees learned that approximately 20% of the passport processing workforce would be eliminated by September. The cuts will affect offices from Victoria to St. John’s, with the heaviest losses expected at processing centers in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.
“We’ve gone from not having enough hands on deck during the pandemic to suddenly being told we’re overstaffed,” said Marianne Laporte, a passport examiner in Ottawa who attended one of the briefings. “It feels like whiplash for those of us who worked overtime for months to clear the backlog.”
The timing has raised eyebrows among labor representatives. Just last summer, Service Canada proudly announced it had finally eliminated the processing delays that plagued the system throughout 2022, when wait times stretched beyond 16 weeks for standard applications.
Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault defended the cuts in a statement late Thursday, calling them “a right-sizing exercise” following the temporary surge hiring during the post-pandemic travel boom. His office claims the reduction will save approximately $42 million annually without affecting service standards.
“Canadians can rest assured that the 10-business-day standard for passport processing will be maintained,” Boissonnault’s statement read. “These adjustments reflect the natural evolution of service demand following the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic recovery period.”
But passport office employees paint a different picture. Internal documents obtained by Mediawall.news show that application volumes have stabilized at roughly 15% above pre-pandemic levels – not the dramatic drop officials suggested would justify such significant staffing cuts.
“We’re still processing about 4,600 applications daily across the network,” said Jerome Turcotte, a senior passport officer who spoke on condition his location not be identified. “That’s nowhere near the crisis levels of 2022, but it’s still well above what we handled in 2019 with fewer staff.”
The union representing affected workers isn’t mincing words. “This is short-sighted cost-cutting that will inevitably lead to future service problems,” said Chris Aylward, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. “Canadians deserve reliable, efficient passport services, not a system perpetually cycling between understaffing and overcorrection.”
According to Service Canada’s own data, passport applications typically surge in five-year cycles, corresponding to the standard validity period. The next major renewal wave is expected in 2025-2026, when documents issued during the 2020-2021 pandemic lull come due.
The federal Conservatives wasted no time criticizing the move. “This Liberal government created chaos in passport offices through mismanagement, then hired thousands to clean up their mess, and now they’re firing the very people they desperately needed,” said opposition critic Melissa Lantsman during Question Period.
The NDP’s transportation critic Taylor Bachrach called for parliamentary committee oversight of the cuts. “Before a single worker loses their job, Canadians deserve to see the data and analysis behind this decision,” he said in a statement Friday morning.
For communities with Service Canada Centers, the impact extends beyond federal employees. In Fredericton, where 22 positions are slated for elimination, Mayor Kate Rogers expressed concern about both service delivery and local economic impact.
“These are good, stable jobs in our community,” Rogers told CBC Radio on Friday. “When you remove 22 family-supporting positions from a city our size, that ripples through local businesses and the housing market.”
Service standards for passport processing were officially restored to pre-pandemic levels in August 2023. Regular applications currently take 10 business days to process, plus mailing time, while urgent requests can be completed in 24-48 hours for an additional fee.
The department says it has invested in technology upgrades to streamline operations, including enhanced document verification systems and automated application routing. Officials suggest these improvements allow them to process applications more efficiently with fewer staff.
But frontline workers question whether the technology is ready to replace human judgment. “We deal with complex identity documents, changing international requirements, and cases that require careful examination,” explained Turcotte. “A computer algorithm can’t always detect sophisticated forgeries or unusual circumstances that might indicate fraud.”
For Canadians planning international travel, passport officers advise applying well before planned departure dates, despite official processing standards. “Even without staffing cuts, we always saw seasonal surges that stretched capacity,” said Laporte. “With fewer colleagues sharing the workload, I’d be very surprised if we don’t see some delays during peak periods.”
The staffing cuts come as part of broader efficiency measures across federal departments. Last month, the Treasury Board directed agencies to identify potential savings of 3-5% in operational budgets, though few have announced specific job reductions until now.
Service Canada’s announcement indicated that affected employees would be offered priority status for vacancies elsewhere in the federal public service, though no guarantees of continued employment were provided.
For now, Canadians with pending passport applications shouldn’t see immediate impacts, as the reductions will be phased in over the coming months. However, anyone planning international travel in late 2024 might want to submit applications earlier than the recommended timeframe – just to be safe.
