Liberals' failure with airport and passport delays is a national embarrassment

NDP Transport Critic Taylor Bachrach made the following statement:

"After two years of being unable to travel, people are beyond frustrated that they cannot get their passports and face severe delays at airports. After doing the right thing during the pandemic, Canadians can now travel to visit their loved ones but are forced to delay or even cancel their trips. This is unacceptable.

The increased demand for passports was entirely predictable. But the Liberals failed to act even though they had months to prepare for travel to return.

Now, the lines for passport services are so long that people are showing up in the middle of the night to start lining up, cancelling long-awaited trips and even paying people to line up for them. It is completely unacceptable that the government of a G7 country cannot provide people with basic services.

The Liberal's newest attempt to address the delays by creating a government "task force" is only for show – it won't fix the delays with the urgency needed. This crisis has been going on for months – this government's failure to plan and fix the delays quickly is a national embarrassment.

Now the Liberals are scrambling to make up for their failures and hiring new staff will take time, meaning delays will continue. Canadians should never have been put in this position. New Democrats will keep pushing the Liberals to accelerate the hiring and training of new employees and to fix these passport and airport delays as quickly as possible for Canadians."