Federal civil servants strike: It’s impossible to keep your passport in Quebec

Quebec passport offices and Service Canada branches have limited their service offerings due to a nationwide strike by federal government employees since Wednesday morning.

• Read more: Federal Public Service: 155,000 members call for general strike

• Read more: The striking government employees will hold a protest here

• Read more: Central government employees strike: Services to citizens disrupted

Citizens who have an appointment to resolve their passport matters or who wish to visit one of the four government service centers in the Quebec City area must turn back upon arrival.

Selected emergencies

The client of the passport office, who is of French origin, had to spend several minutes explaining the urgency of his situation. She wanted to get the passport of her father-in-law, who is suffering from cancer, and was due to travel to France with his family on Sunday. His request was rejected.

“My husband’s father has cancer so we are going for a walk on Sunday. I want his passport before he dies. I have been told that he needs to go to a doctor to get proof that he is sick and that he has to die to be considered an essential case. […] It’s still very frustrating,” he laments.

The Service Canada website reads, “Passport services are limited to clients living in emergency or humanitarian situations.” However, the government has not specified what constitutes an emergency in its view.

Essential services that have a cash impact are also provided such as pension scheme, old age security, employment insurance and provision of social insurance number.

without warning

For her part, Jessica was surprised by the general strike announced on Tuesday evening. She was planning to renew her passport for a trip this summer.

“By going about it in April, I thought I was going to be OK. I looked at the Service Canada site last night and was told to go there and it was a little flat. The assistants told me to follow the news to find out when the strike ended. »

Although she understands the reasons for the labor dispute, she worries that her trip to Tunisia will have to be canceled or postponed if the strike continues.

picket

More than a hundred federal civil servants have protested government inaction on their working conditions since this morning outside the Service Canada offices on Chemin des Quatre-Bourgeois.

• Hear a heated exchange between National President of the Taxation Employees Union Mark Fryer and Richard Martino QUB-Radio:

“The government has unfortunately held us hostage to our salaries for two years. We worked like crazy during the pandemic to help Canadians, argues Fedna Mayrand, program officer for Canada Summer Jobs. […] All we want is a fair salary. »

Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada are without a contract starting in 2021. Specifically, they are demanding a 13.5% salary increase over three years, while the Trudeau government is proposing a 9.25% salary increase.

The government official also likes to point out that Service Canada employees are also “citizens with families who are affected by inflation.”