| Ottawa says it’s making progress on Canadian airport congestion and passport backlogs in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.
This week, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra met once again with the CEOs of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority and WestJet. They discussed current and planned actions being taken by industry to quickly bring on more employees and to bolster core operations to better respond to the challenges of rapidly increasing demands as the number of Canadians travelling by air continues to grow. Minister Alghabra will also meet next week with the CEO of Air Canada.
The Government of Canada and air industry partners continue to take steps to ease congestion in airports and bring traveller wait times down, including:
Prime Minister Trudeau announced on June 25, 2022, the creation of a new task force to improve the processing of passports and immigration applications, as well as to monitor the situation at Canadian airports.
On June 27, Transport Canada updated its Interim Order Respecting Certain Requirements for Civil Aviation Due to COVID-19 to enable the department to impose additional obligations on airlines that have repeated cases of the same flight occurring with high levels of ArriveCAN non-compliance. These additional obligations, including the need to report potential non-compliances shortly after take-off, will support the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) continuing enforcement efforts on non-compliant travellers, particularly those who refuse to come into compliance.
The Government of Canada continues to make improvements to ArriveCAN so it is faster and easier for travellers to use.
Travellers arriving at Toronto Pearson International Airport or Vancouver International Airport will be able to save time by using the Advance Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) Declaration optional feature in ArriveCAN to submit their customs and immigration declaration in advance of arrival. As of June 28, this option was available on the ArriveCAN mobile app in addition to the web version. This feature will be expanded to other airports in the future, including Montréal-Trudeau International Airport this summer.
Frequent travellers are also encouraged to take advantage of the “saved traveller” feature in ArriveCAN. It allows a user to save travel documents and proof of vaccination information to reuse on future trips. The information is pre-populated in ArriveCAN the next time the traveller completes a submission, which makes it faster and more convenient.
As of June 28, travellers receive a digital handout explaining their entry and post-border requirements based on their ArriveCAN submission so they have easy and quick access to the latest health and travel measures information.
Since April, just over 1,000 Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) screening officers have been hired across Canada. With this, the number of screening officers at Toronto Pearson International Airport and Vancouver International Airport is now over 100 percent of the targeted requirements for this summer based on projected traffic.
CBSA is maximizing officer availability and additional Student Border Services Officers are now at work.
CBSA and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority are making available additional kiosks at Toronto Pearson International Airport customs hall areas.
CBSA and PHAC streamlined the process to identify travellers who are required to undergo testing at Toronto Pearson.
Mandatory random COVID-19 testing will remain temporarily suspended at all airports, for travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated, until mid-July, when the random testing will return, and tests will be completed outside of the airports.
The actions we’ve taken since the beginning of May have yielded significant gains. From June 20 to 29, across all larger airports combined, CATSA reported nearly 85 percent of passengers being screened in 15 minutes or less.
We are making progress, but challenges remain, particularly for travellers facing flight cancellations and issues with baggage services. We continue to take action with air industry partners to reduce the delays in the travel system and update Canadians on our progress.
 Canadian passport. Kylie Anderson/Unsplash Photo CROSS-COUNTRY PASSPORT UPDATES
The Government of Canada is taking steps to help streamline the in-person application process and better manage large crowds and lineups for passport services, in particular in large urban centres, including the Greater Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal areas.
Service Canada is implementing new triage measures to provide a more intensive, client-specific approach.
This work started the week of June 20 in Montréal and is being extended to Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.
In the Greater Toronto Area, the triage is separated into three groups:
- Travel within 24 to 48 hours
- Travel within 3 to 19 days
- Travel beyond 20 days (or with no specific travel date)
For travel within 48 hours, clients arriving or on site at any of these locations will receive a ticket with an approximate window of time to return for service at these specialized passport sites. Proof of travel or need is required. For travel within 3 to 19 days, clients arriving or on site are being directed to specific nearby Service Canada Centres, with appointments. Proof of travel or need is required.
Before offices open, at specialized passport sites in each of these cities, increased numbers of managers and executives are assisting and speaking directly with clients.
While the triage methods vary from location to location based on the circumstances, staff are focused on clear communication to clients and prioritizing service to those with urgent travel needs within the following 24 to 48 hours. They are also directing clients with longer-term travel plans to the most appropriate service channels to ensure their passport needs are met and their travel is not interrupted. This includes making better use of the network of over 300 Service Canada sites, and ensuring all centres have the staff, technology and processing capacity to offer by-appointment passport service to clients with less-urgent situations, who have been redirected to them through the triage process.
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