Passport Canada blues...

I still haven't received my passport and this is starting to get scary. It was supposed to be mailed by Priority Post by today. But because Canadians flying to the United States after January 23, 2007 need to have a valid passport to enter the U.S., Passport Canada is "experiencing a high volume of passport demand."

A woman I talked to at Passport Canada last week said that if I hadn't received it by today I should call and get them to give it a little push. The line to Passport Canada is (surprise) always busy. With some persistence and the use of my phone's redial button, I eventually got through to the voice response system.

But once I navigated to the "inquire about an application" option, I got a message saying that my call is very important to them, all their agents are busy, and they have reached the limit of the number of people who can be on hold. They then ask you to call back later.

It took 30 minutes of hitting redial and punching in the numbers that navigate back to that option before I finally got into a queue to talk to an agent. Then I waited on hold for another 40 minutes. Total wait time: 1 hour and 10 minutes. You really have to be determined.

But once I finally got through, the person I talked to laughed when I told him what his colleague had told me last week, and said she couldn't promise that. He then explained to me that the only way to get it in time for my Thursday flight would be to get them to halt mailing it to me and initiate a pickup at the Passport Canada office.

I had suggested exactly that to his colleague last week, who had told me it wasn't possible.

Since I don't have an alternative, I'm following his advice. I sent an "urgent" fax to the Scarborough Passport Canada office, telling them that I need the passport for business travel, along with emails or letters confirming I am writing about this to provide proof for reason of travel.

I'm wondering if I'm going to have to reschedule my flight.