My Canadian passport was only expiring in March 2024 but I decided to start the renewal process when I came back from France since there were only a couple of blank pages left.
I braced myself for the ordeal—doing paperwork is never fun, not to mention the expected Hunger Games at the passport office. I mean, it was so bad last year that the Government of Canada was trying to urgently buy hundreds of chairs for applicants forced to wait for hours.
The short trip to Alexandria Bay was the passport’s last trip ever. That evening, I said goodbye to my beloved travel companion of nine years and I got to work on my application and Mark’s since his passport was also expiring in early 2024.
Filling up the forms
Feng picked up the paper version of the applications at a Canada Post outlet. I’m old-fashioned, I like working on hard copies but I could have completed the PDF version available online.
Renewing a passport is easier than applying for a new one because no guarantor, proof of Canadian citizenship and supporting IDs are required. Still, I find some questions kind of weird. Why does the Government of Canada want to know about my occupation in the last two years? Does it matter when applying for a passport?
I filled out both pages and I reached for my phone before dealing with section 6, “References.”
Finding two references
“Provide the following information for two persons who are not your relatives; are 18 years of age or over; and who have known you for at least two (2) years. They must agree to have their contact information provided as they may be contacted to confirm your identity.”
This one was a real dilemma when I applied for my first Canadian passport after becoming a citizen—and I had to find a guarantor as well. I didn’t know that many people back then and I found it awkward to ask co-workers to be my passport references.
Turns out that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about because it’s a cultural rite of passage around here. Canadian society would apparently fall apart without this reference system so in the past ten years, I’ve been a passport, job and security clearance reference for a dozen friends who also happily returned the favour when needed.
Proper etiquette dictates you should ask before including someone as a reference but my friends and I usually take a shortcut, a quick “eh, used you as a reference” message on WhatsApp is just fine.
Getting the pictures
When was the last time you paid for the privilege of having the most unflattering picture of yourself taken?
Canada’s passport photo requirements are insane. In France, going to a photo booth was enough but in Canada, there are no photo booths so typical options are Shoppers Drug Mart or photography studios.
I highly recommend Sooter’s Photography. Not only there are conveniently located metres from Ottawa’s west-end passport office but they are friendly, professional and super knowledgeable. We started going there when we were applying for Mark’s first passport—meeting all the requirements with a baby is super difficult and Shoppers Drug Mart had no idea what they were doing.
We paid $19.99 + tax for the two pictures, cheaper than the $24.99 Shoppers currently (over)charges.
Submitting the application
You should be able to book an appointment online but don’t dream, there are no appointments available.
The solution? Wake up and show up early.
We went to the closest passport office on Meadowlands Drive, now located in a bigger building to avoid a long queue that spills onto the sidewalk.
We joined a first lineup and a couple of hours later, a first employee quickly checked the applications to make sure we were meeting all the requirements. Then we got a number and had the chance to sit down.
Eventually, our number was called and we officially submitted Mark’s application and mine. Our current passports were cancelled (no fancy process, good old hole puncher did the job) but we were able to keep them.
I also paid the fees—$160 for my ten-year passport, $57 for Mark’s five-year passport, plus $40 to pick up both passports in person (no extra fee if sent by mail but we don’t trust mail delivery…).
The service standard is currently ten business days for applications submitted in person. I left the passport office around noon with two printed receipts and a June 6 pick-up date.
Lo and behold, both documents were ready as expected on June 6 and we didn’t even have to queue to pick them up.
Goodbye, second Canadian passport, the pandemic edition with PHAC stickers confirming COVID test and quarantine requirements. With you, I travelled to China in 2014, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Brazil in 2015, Brazil, Argentina and Chile in 2016, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil in 2017 and again in 2018, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile in 2019, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Chile in 2020, to Brazil in 2021 and 2022, to Mexico and Brazil in 2023, plus countless of times to France and a few times to the US.
Welcome, third Canadian passport—the story has yet to be written!
Oh mais tu as le droit de conserver ton ancien passeport ? Ici en France tu dois restituer l’ancien passeport quand tu viens chercher le nouveau. Ce que je trouve dommage car un passeport plein de tampons est un chouette souvenir.
Apparemment non, parce que j’ai pu garder tous mes anciens passeports français (sans tricher, j’ai juste demandé!)
Glad it did not take too long to get the new one!
I also keep my expired ones so i can reminisce 🙂
Expired passports are great souvenirs 🙂
Eh the Canadian passport, I live in the States and being suspicious by nature will apply expedited for a passport in person when visiting Canada and get it next day, this due to some other reasons, but also to skip all the back and forth mailing, while must have the old invalidated passport back (better get it right-away back rather than asking to be mailed back and not shredded).
And here is the last encounter with Canadian immigration while venturing North as I do once in a while.
IO: how are you doing sir?
Me: good good.
IO: Where do you live?
Me: NYC
——- Disclaimer: I kid them with love and tend to crack jokes. Not because that’s me who is always funny, but I genuinely believe you communicate better with a smile, especially in tense situations when you cross a border and everyone is stiff, presumed a criminal until leaving the booth, being abused under every possible circumstance… while the IOs pretend to see through you.
IO: you are driving a car with American plates …
Me: I am a dual citizen and will get back in the same car (he had a smile at this point … must have thought so nice to celebrate both the flags … or, huh another Canadian turned Yankee)
IO: do you have a US passport I can see
Me : sure, I will have to show it back to the Yankees when back…
——– And there comes a question and answer which turns all this nice exchange upside down, I have to admit I was joking, but he didn’t take my joke lightly …
IO: Are you bringing any firearms ?
Me : Eh… (the Canadian Eh in a delayed voice) NO, not really. —— Big mistake, you don’t double joke on a Canadian IO about guns.
——– That NOT REALLY went like a bullet through his brain, his voice went to threatening RED, actually screaming
IO: Sir, are you bringing any firearms to Canada!?
——– At this point my American Me took over and being prejudged as one, the ping pong hot exchange just started
Me: NO I am not.
IO: Sir, are you bringing any firearms to Canada!?
Me: Definitely not, I just said NO.
IO: I will ask you again: Sir, are you bringing any firearms to Canada!?
Me: For the record and for the camera (just above his head), NOOOOO.
IO: Are you sure?
Me: Yes I am sure, I never owned a firearm license in Canada or US. And living in NYC it is virtually impossible to legally own a gun. So my answer is a BIG NO.
—— Seems this last argument convinced him I was telling the truth. This and the fact that I was very fast, to the point with my answers and quite opposing his quick questions/allegations. He might have taken me for a secondary and delayed me, although I didn’t care as I was carrying a Canadian passport, while regretting being seen as an American in my own country for the wrong reason and not being able to crack a joke no matter how bad of a joke it was.
IO: have a nice trip sir.
Me : and welcome back to myself (while driving off the booth).
I know IOs are on the edge as the rest of the world has been for a while, and I think one should be very careful even when traveling with a Canadian passport to Canada. Especially about a hot and deadly topic (mainly in the USA) : guns. Reminds me of the famous funny and true saying: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people… but then again I don’t usually expect the IO to get my irony. All my relatives in Canada scolded me for this episode. And I thought to myself :
After all that nonsense and humiliating events during Covid19, and the mind shifting experiences that people had in the last couple of years, the worst treatments from their “democratically elected and incompetent governments” … I cannot even crack a joke and dare the guardians of this door I can always enter? They can definitely step over me under the existing laws as they did with millions of ppl in the past (again there was no gun inside my car and that’s the cold fact at the end of the day), and something must be wrong with me to joke at that place for that topic: BUT THEY WILL NEVER KILL THAT FUNNY REBEL KID INSIDE ME!
Oooou Canada…. Oooouch Canada!
Same I feel in the States: Immigration is the last bit of the government I have business with as a citizen. A joke here and there is harmless. But it seems we lost that human sense and connection (let alone harmless humor), where he could have said at the end : I got your joke, and probably the American culture is affecting you, but seriously that was a joke right? And please I have a job to do and a supervisor is watching, so let’s hear it again, NO 🙂
The joke with the USA immigration will be due for next time I leave a comment here, while they are darker and much worse than their nice Canadians counterparts. On top of that they were insulted by my attitude that didn’t fully liked the old saying : the grass is greener on the other side! While I understand it, I do not necessarily always agree!
I’d love to cross the border with you 😆
Feng joked at the border once, a long time ago: we were stuck in a huge lineup in Detroit (crossing as Greyhound passengers) and to “do you have any drugs with you?” he replied “Tylenol”. Then we were searched and questioned forever.
I also pick up my passports in person—I find it weird to have them mailed…