Karina Gould says her department is considering more changes, including moving the entire application process online.

Passport offices are still dealing with a wave of applications, the responsible minister says, and wait times are "completely unacceptable."

Karina Gould says these long wait times are her top priority now, but she cannot specify when things will return to normal.

The federal government said that 72 percent of Canadians applying for a passport in any form will receive it within 40 business days, while 96 percent of those who apply in person will get their passport within 10 business days.

The government website now includes estimated wait times for passport office visits, updated three times a day, to help people plan.

On Monday afternoon, you can expect a wait of four hours and 45 minutes at the Ottawa location, three hours in Toronto, and six hours and 45 minutes in Vancouver.

In the same context, Gould says her department is considering making more changes, including moving the application process online.

She also says her ministry is working with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to determine if there is a way to issue passports to people when they obtain their citizenship instead of requiring a separate application. Both plans will take a long time to implement.

There are usually between two million and five million passport applications annually in Canada. During the pandemic, only about 1.5 million passports were issued over two years.

As a result, passport staff were assigned other duties during that period, and Canada Services is now trying to move that work elsewhere.

While Gould says 2022 is on track to be within the typical range, with the number of issuances approaching five million, "we have usually been able to manage this volume throughout the year but we are seeing the increase happening at the same time, which naturally leads to long lines."

According to Gould, passport processing takes six weeks in Australia, while it takes 10 weeks to get a passport in the United Kingdom and 11 weeks to get a passport in the United States.

Edited by: Dima Abu Khair