John Robson: Canada’s Passport Problem a Crisis of Basic Government Competence

People sit in chairs to ease the long wait outside a passport office in Montreal on June 22, 2022. The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz

Commentary

Something does not compute. Well, quite a few things. But here are two. The Canadian government, unable to fulfil the very basic function of getting citizens passports without travel-plan-wrecking delays, leaps into committee by creating a 13-plus-minister task force on how to do something it or its predecessors have been doing since 1862 while the prime minister saves the world effortlessly.