Trail to Nowhere

Our MP (Alex Atamenenko, NDP) provided a service to his constituents by announcing that four passport clinics would be held in the riding. The deal was that 450 applications would be received at each of the clinics and that 20 working days would be required to receive the new passport. Sounds ideal. On Friday, I headed to Trail to renew my passport which will expire in the early part of '08. I wanted to be in the lineup by 8:00 a.m. and as usual, we were away ahead of the game. I actually arrived at the line at 7:15 and it was much longer than I had anticipated. However, I knew that I was within the 450 quota so I stood around with my book and lots of people to visit. A guy did a head count and I was at about number 300. The doors, of course, didn't open until 9 a.m. and then slowly the line began to move. Every once in a while someone who had "information" came out to make announcements to those of us in the crowd. It came to be known that they would only process 450 applications and some people were getting passports for their entire family - they all had to live at the same address, however. At about 10 a.m. a fellow told us that all the "leftovers" from the clinic in Grand Forks had been given numbers the previous day and they had been admitted first. Then a guy came out and asked us how many passports we were having processed. Everyone around me replied, "One." Finally, at about 10:50 a.m. I was on the stairs and this was the last stretch. Then, an official came out to say that no more passports would be taken that day and that we could come to the clinic in Nelson on Saturday. This time no numbers were given out! I realize that our MP can't control how Passport Canada does its job. It was good of him to offer us some opportunities to get passports because I'm sure the Gov't of Canada never would have come up with the idea. (Our closest passport offices are on the Lower Mainland or Calgary). Don't you think there could be a way that someone could figure out how many applications would be received before some of us waited for four hours? There were at least 200 people behind me and we had heard rumours that some clinics took 500 people. A lot of the people I chatted with had never waited in lineups for anything so they now knew what it was like to get tickets for a Stones concert. Those of us living along highway 3 live right next door to the American border and the way Passport Canada operates, most of us are going nowhere.