Canada’s passport application backlog has been ‘completely eliminated,’ one of the top ministers in the Trudeau government says.
CTV News reports tat Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould this week said that service times for passport applications are back to pre-pandemic standards, after the backlog ballooned last summer.
Canadians looking to renew their passports last summer found long wait lines and lengthy delays, an issue that passport officials said was due to a huge spike in demand for travel as COVID travel restrictions began to ease.
The CBC reports that Canadians waiting anxiously for their passports to arrive before a trip abroad now have a new option to check the status of their applications.
“The federal government launched a new online portal on Tuesday that allows recent applicants to see where their applications stand,” the network stated.
Gould also said the government in Ottawa is working on a new online application process for those renewing their passports, but the CBC said she didn’t provide a timeline.
The Toronto Star says Gould told reporters “that she can guarantee that people who apply for passports will now get them on time, and she urged people whose passports expire in 2023 to get them renewed immediately.”
Business travellers. Rob Wilson/Unsplash Photo
WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE BUSINESS CITIES
A new study by a company called ECA International says The Big Apple is the most expensive city in the world for business travel.
An ECA study looked at the cost of four-star hotels, meals, taxis, drinks and incidentals and found New York City topped the list at a whopping $796 per day USD (almost $1,100 Canadian dollars). Try running THAT past your company accountant.
Here’s the top 10 list. I haven’t been able to find a complete list, but ECA was kind enough to send me a North American top ten. See below for that list.
WORLD TOP TEN
- New York City $796
2. Geneva $700
3. Washington DC $658
4. Zurich $641
5. San Francisco $609
6. Tel Aviv $595
7. Los Angeles $584
8. London $583
9. Luanda (Angola) $564
1o, Paris $557
NORTH AMERICA TOP TEN
- New York City $796
- Washington DC $658
- San Francisco $609
- Los Angeles $584
- Houston $552
- Chicago $529
- Atlanta $519
- Toronto $472
- Montreal $450
- Ottawa $442
An ECA spokesperson told me Vancouver was 12th most expensive in North America, and 44th most expensive in the world, at an average daily rate of $401. That means a conference in New York City would cost you almost twice as much as one in Vancouver. I’m surprised the gap is that large, but it could in part be due to the low Canadian dollar we currently have.
