A great example of things just working.
It is in a nondescript shopping mall plaza that looks pretty aged. I would imagine almost all of the traffic is for the grocery store and the passport office. All the other businesses just rely on foot traffic generated by these two offices if I had to guess.
When you walk in to the passport office, there are two lines. One is a pickup line, the other is the preclearance line. When you get to the front of this line, one of the tellers will check over your completed application and tell you if there are any errors or things that need to change. So worst case scenario, you wait a few minutes and have to go home to get something instead of waiting an hour or two to be told to go home and try again like what happens in the USA.
I had previously gone to a local passport photo shop (Glamour Photo in Brampton by Kennedy and Hurontario) and got 2 headshots with the name and phone number and everything stamped on the back. When I walked into the office I had no form. If you turn to the left upon entrance into the main waiting area, there are hanging bins on the wall with child passport forms, adult renewal forms, and adult application forms. Right beside that area are some flat surfaces with pens for people like me to fill out forms. You can also print them from an online form and take them in with you.
The form takes a couple minutes to fill out and you need to have photos and a couple non-family references for the renewal application as well as your old passport. Once filled out, I waited in the first pre-processing line. It took roughly 10 minutes to get through the queue which was about 3/4 full. That will make sense when you get there, there is only 1 configuration of line possible. This was made longer most likely as there was a lady getting rather flustered and monopolizing one agents time because she had zero forms of ID, no affidavits, and no way to prove who she was and wanted a passport. Umm... No.
Anyways, after the line the guy had a couple questions to clarify. I was seeking a fast processing time, and he politely informed me I had to show proof of travel when I get to the agent on the other side, in the main waiting area and he highlighted it with his yellow highlighter. Checked my photos, and within a minute he had put the forms and pictures in my old passport along with a number ticket.
I went to the next room and waited there. It took roughly 1.5 hours to get through the line approximately 25 positions.
When I got to the counter another friendly agent took my stuff, looked it over again. I asked her about the "urgent" processing which is a 24hr turn and showed her a confirmed flight. She told me that I could do "express" processing which was 48 hours and $50-$60 cheaper. Excellent. In all reality I didn't need either. However I don't like not having my passport so the shorter the period it is not in my possession, the better. For an FYI, standard processing time is 2-weeks and it is mailed to you.
She looked it all over, filled in a couple spots on the form, and told me my total. I paid by Visa credit card, and that was that. Super simple. She punched a hole through my passport, handed it back to me with a receipt and told me to come back in essentially less than 48 hours.
So I came back Friday with my receipt and went into the pickup counter. Absolutely zero line at 9am, and I was in and out in under a minute. It was truly that simple. read more
