Prince George passport office set to open April 25th

10-day passport service is returning to Prince George in less than two weeks.

The Service Canada office at 1363 Fourth Avenue is slated to begin offering the service on April 25th.

During an interview with Vista Radio, Federal Minister of Families, Children, and Social Development Karina Gould told Vista Radio this will ease the burden of travel for northern residents.

“I think this is a big milestone. I think it’s really important for the passport program and I think it’s even more important for the Government of Canada to be there and delivering services for folks right across the country that haven’t had access to it before.”

“There is the capacity to manage the 10-day service in a very smooth way. We are delivering passports across the country 99% of the time within the 10 or 20-day service standard and I think it is going to be an exciting day on April 25th in Prince George.”

Previously, Kelowna was the nearest city to offer northern residents any sort of 10-day passport services, while other offices are located in Vancouver, Surrey, and Victoria.

The opening of the PG office will not only ease the travel burden for northerners, but it will also ease the added congestion often seen at those other locations.

“Moving these services into Prince George is going to be beneficial for those that live in the area and folks in northern BC that aren’t going to have to travel just as much to get a 10-day passport service. It is also going to ease congestion in some of the southern cities where they offer passport services already,” added Gould.

Gould mentioned the only obstacle standing in the way of the opening date is the potential strike of public sector workers, which could disrupt services in a number of areas.

“Depending on what that job action looks like that could impact the opening date based on what happens over the next couple of days. Everything is on track to be opened in Prince George on April 25th,” added Gould.

In addition, the minister mentioned service levels for passport applications are better now than they were pre-pandemic – numerous cities saw massive processing backlogs last summer after travel restrictions related to the pandemic were eased by Ottawa.

“Folks don’t really have to worry about the backlog. We very much have the capacity to deliver passports on time again – we have to see what is going to happen over the coming days with the potential strike action for the public sector union. But, we feel very confident we can manage that volume.” said Gould.

During the summer of 2022, Ottawa added 10-day passport services to 13 cities across Canada including Lethbridge, Red Deer, Fort McMurray, and Whitehorse with the remaining sites situated in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.