Bastards.

[bjarvis]

My application to replace my missing passport was submitted a while ago.

Just today, Passport Canada announced a policy change dated October 1: they've changed the rules for eligibility of guarantors.

To this point, certain professionals who knew the applicant for at least two years and were not a relative could be a guarantor; for those of us living outside the Dominion, the list of professionals was considerably shorter but not impossible.

Under the new rules, a guarantor is now allowed to be a relative and the list of professional occupations is now out the window. The difficult part for me is that the guarantor must be him/herself a holder of a Canadian passport.

There are no Canadians within a day's drive of Washington, DC who currently holds a passport and can legitimately say they've known me for two years.

There is no word at the moment about what they're going to do with passport applications already in the pipeline. If I at least had a rejection notice, I might run into someone in Seattle next week who has known me the required period of time, say, Anne Uebelacker or any of my friends in Squares Across the Border. My only alternate plan is to ship my documentation to friends or family in Canada for their signatures, ship the documents back to me in the US, then ship them all back to the Gov't of Canada for processing.

To say this sucks toxic waste is a mild understatement.

Comments

[greyguy-sf.livejournal.com]

...perhaps if you get the form from the consulate section at the embassy you can take it with you to Seattle and ask one of our "friendly neighbors to the north" to sign it just in case you have to submit another application. I am sorry that that you are having to go through such bureaucratic calesthenics.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

That's one option, but I'll still have to spend $$$ to get a new set of photos taken so they could also be signed by the guarantor --it's not easy to find a photographer who is willing to take the photos to Canadian passport specifications.

We'll see what happens in the next week; I'm watching my credit card balance online to see if a service charge from Passport Canada appears which might indicate acceptance of my submitted application.