Ontario residents can now pick up their passports at two new offices

The federal government is adding two more passport pick-up locations in Ontario to help ease long wait times for renewals in the province, and across the country.

The government announced on Monday it would expand services at five locations across the country, including the two in Ontario, to offer pick-up services.

The Ontario locations will be based in Brampton at 40 Gillingham Drive and Whitby at 1615 Dundas Street East. Local residents can now receive express and standard pick-up services at these two locations.

“This expansion will allow many Canadians who need to pick up passports in person to do so closer to their homes, rather than travel to another office,” Cabinet Minister Karina Gould said in a statement on Monday.

“Opening these new pick-up locations will also help reduce lineups at other offices in bigger cities.”

Previously, these locations did not have the option for Ontarians to visit and pick up passports in-person despite the pick-up service already existing in 29 other locations across the country.

In Ontario, passport offices have been dealing with long lines forcing people to wait hours, and sometimes overnight, to receive their passport in-person and deal with issues related to their applications.

“Service Canada staff are working hard to provide passports to Canadians as quickly as possible,” Gould said in her statement. “To help improve that service experience, today we have expanded passport pick-up service to 5 additional locations across Canada.”

The government said it has issued 605,440 passports since April 1 with almost 50,000 issued in the last week.