My Brand New Passport

Two weeks ago, I com­pleted what I hope is my last paper­works for a while. But it was worth it: today, I picked my Cana­dian pass­port up!

Since I’m now a Cana­dian cit­i­zen, I’m enti­tled to a Cana­dian pass­port. I couldn’t wait! First, as a trav­eler, I obvi­ously value pass­ports. Appar­ently, it is esti­mated that 187 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries grant visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to Cana­dian pass­port hold­ers. In addi­tion to my French pass­port, that’s a lot of visa-free trav­els! Cana­dian pass­ports are also very use­ful to go to the U.S.A, since I won’t need to go through the visa-waiver restric­tions any­more: pay­ing $7, hav­ing my fin­ger­prints and my pic­ture taken and apply­ing for an Elec­tronic Travel Autho­riza­tion before trav­el­ing to or through the U.S.A was not a pleas­ant expe­ri­ence. To me, a Cana­dian pass­port is also the sym­bol of my new cit­i­zen­ship, and I’m proud to be Canadian.

Apply­ing for a Cana­dian pass­port is not that easy though.

First, you need to down­load the forms: for me, it was the “Adult, 16 years old and older, liv­ing in Canada”. You can also pick appli­ca­tions up at any Canada Post out­let or Ser­vice Canada cen­ter.

The first sec­tion of the three-pages appli­ca­tion is easy to fill up: it requires basic per­sonal infor­ma­tions, such as name, date of birth etc.

For the sec­ond sec­tion, you will need a guar­an­tor to vouch for you. The guar­an­tor must hold a valid Cana­dian pass­port; have known the appli­cant for at least two years; be a Cana­dian cit­i­zen 18 years of age or older; be acces­si­ble to Pass­port Canada for ver­i­fi­ca­tion and live in Canada or in the U.S.A. Feng was my obvi­ous choice!

I had never had a Cana­dian pass­port, so sec­tion 3 didn’t apply to me. As for sec­tion 4, the proof of Cana­dian sec­tion, my case was straight­for­ward: I became Cana­dian through nat­u­ral­iza­tion. My proof of cit­i­zen­ship had been given to me on the day of the cer­e­mony: my cit­i­zen­ship card. Doc­u­ments to prove iden­tity, easy as well: Health Card and Driver’s License (thanks God I have one even though I don’t really drive!).

The last sec­tion, the addi­tional per­sonal infor­ma­tion one, was a bit trickier.

First, I had to state where I was employed and for how long. Then, I had to find two ref­er­ences, who are not rel­a­tives, have known me for at least two years and speak either French or Eng­lish. I do know a lot of peo­ple, but I was pretty shy about ask­ing them to vouch for me. In the end, I asked my clos­est friend in Ottawa and my lan­guage school’s admin­is­tra­tive assis­tant. She wasn’t sur­prised at all and she told me she had just pro­vided a ref­er­ence for my boss’ pass­port. I guess all Cana­di­ans know the process and have to go through it!

Last and final step, I had two pass­port pic­tures taken, the ugly ones that look like mug shots because we are not allowed to smile.

All in all, the appli­ca­tion is not dif­fi­cult too com­plete. Def­i­nitely less dif­fi­cult than apply­ing for per­ma­nent res­i­dence, but — sur­pris­ingly — more dif­fi­cult than apply­ing for citizenship!

In France, there is no sys­tem of ref­er­ences or guar­an­tor. Very few infor­ma­tion is asked as far as I remem­ber (I applied for my last pass­port in 2003!), cer­tainly not where you work etc. So I was a lit­tle bit sur­prised to see all the infor­ma­tions needed to get a Cana­dian pass­port. But appar­ently, there has been sev­eral sto­ries where for­eign spies would use Cana­dian pass­port (a rel­a­tively neu­tral coun­try whose cit­i­zens travel a lot) so there is a some­what exten­sive on applicant’s back­ground now.

I decided to apply in per­son at the down­town Pass­port Canada office, so that I wouldn’t have to send my cit­i­zen­ship card and other ID doc­u­ments. Appar­ently, every­body had the same idea: the place was just packed. As of June 1^st 2009, Cana­di­ans offi­cially need a pass­port to enter the U.S.A via land or water (they only needed birth cer­tifi­cate or driver’s license before), so a lot of peo­ple are apply­ing right now.

After a hour wait, I brought my appli­ca­tion to the agent. She checked every­thing, had a look at my IDs and that was it! Pass­ports are not cheap: $87. I asked if I could pick my own pass­port up (oth­er­wise they are sent my mail, and it’s quite erratic in the sum­mer), which cost another $10. I’m not sure why it’s more expen­sive to pick a pass­port up in per­son rather than have it sent but never mind. Pro­cess­ing time: only two weeks.

And so, today, exactly two weeks later, I rushed at noon to get my brand new pass­port. It’s beau­ti­ful. Navy blue, with a bunch a cool secu­rity fea­tures my old French pass­port doesn’t have. I just have to fill it up with entry and exit stamps now.

Related posts:

1. The Pros and Cons to Cana­dian Citizenship
2. I Belong Here… And There Too
3. On The Road Again
4. Our South­ern Neighbours
5. Cit­i­zen­ship Cer­e­mony In Ottawa