All I want for Wedding Day, is my Bride…
Mar 14, 2007 News, Passport, Personal, Rants
Okay, so here’s the scoop, back in mid December, my fiancee put her application into Passport Canada, and figured that we have enough time before the flight to Vegas for the wedding to receive it since the turn around is supposed to be 20 business days.
So over the holidays when we’re in Ottawa, we had an incident with Fraud activity w/ our Credit Card. Now it just so happens that the CC is the same one used to foot the payment on the Passport. Okay, so she Makes the call to Passport Canada, and all is well. Card is updated, correct information provided, we begin to wait, and continue all plans a usual.
Now here’s where it gets really interesting. Nearly a month passes, and no news other than a confirmation number. Calls to Passport Canada ensue, and busy signals persist. Busy signal after busy signal. Finally she gets through, she has the confirmation number, but they say it’ll be another 45 business days?! Are you kidding me?!!! That puts us into the end of February.
That day of course, came and went, and more calls have been made. No progress or updates or anything of the sort. Time to call the MP. Local MP can’t help unless she goes to Passport Canada first… wait now. Do it all right, and still need to go back to Passport Canada, to find out they will delay it again? I think no. Useless local MP. Called neighbouring MPs to get help. One makes the promise to have it in her Hands in 2 weeks.
Well, 1 day later, the Gov’t took the payment off the credit card. Yay! should be seeing the passport as promised. Well, no. Not quite. Still no Passport, and now the MP won’t take her calls.
She takes a half day off work to go to the local passport office, only to find out that they don’t know if it’s been mailed, or what’s happening with it. Bring in the media!
I don’t know what the media will be able to do for the situation, but if it manages to get half the attention it should, I’ll have a my Beautiful, Happy Bride on a plane, passport in hand, with me March 29th, 2007… rather than a disheartened, exhausted Bride who had to drive 32 hours and 3 days to get to Vegas the day of her Wedding…
March 14th, 2007 at 10:13
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March 14th, 2007 at 11:58
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March 14th, 2007 at 14:42
Any reason why you chose to mail in your passport application (with vital documents like your birth certificate) instead of applying in person at the Passport Office in downtown Kitchener?
This way, you don’t risk your vital documents to be lost or misdirected in the mail.
Even better, though, is if you complete your application online, when you visit the Passport Office in person you get to go into a different queue (much shorter and faster) where they just make sure that your ID matches what you put in your online application, check your pictures, take your money and send you on your way.
I find it amusing that while your extensive wedding preparations are the equivalent of a “second full-time job”, you obviously didn’t research the options available to you to get your passport.
March 14th, 2007 at 15:01
Actually, she didn’t go down to the passport office in person because she has a full time job. It wasn’t an option to take time off to go stand in line for x number of hours.
Yesterday’s time out, was a last straw.
And we ask again, why should she be punished, for doing things in the method’s recommended nearly 5 months before we leave?
Not that it’s really any business of yours, however, we had no need for passports prior to this, and then budgeting comes in to play too.
Just as a note, the ‘line of priority’ at the passport office, shouldn’t matter one iota given that on the application there is the option to select your date of travel, which was filled out and it asks if this is for a ‘rush’ or something to that extent. I don’t recall the exact wording.
There was no loss of vitals, or misdirection in the mail… This was pure folly on the part of the Government of Canada Passport Office. First to be told 20 business days. Then 45 more, then finally “we have no estimated time for you”, we’ll call you when we know more.
It’s hard to understand or comprehend how disheartening the whole process can be if you aren’t experiencing it. It’s easy to ask, ‘why didn’t you do this?’ ‘did you try this?’
Simple thing, we have, we did, she gets screwed.
March 14th, 2007 at 17:47
Addendum to my last reply…
I applied at the Passport office in Ottawa, during the Christmas holiday. They too took my birth certificate, as it was a required document.