(Ottawa) Émile Bouchard, this teenager suffering from cancer, will finally be able to obtain his passport despite the strike by federal civil servants which has lasted for ten days. The Department of Employment and Social Development contacted her parents last week after La Presse told her story.
“In short, less stress on the shoulders,” rejoiced the teenager’s mother, Anik Langlois. This one had launched a cry of the heart last week, fearing to have to cancel a trip in family to the United States because of the strike of the civil servants.
“Maybe issuing passports isn’t an essential service, but this trip is for our family: recharging the batteries and reuniting,” she explained last week in a lengthy email sent to La Presse. .
She had been planning to apply for a passport earlier this year for this July trip to Hawaii for a year, but their son’s diagnosis turned everything upside down. This is one of the only glimmers of hope for the 14-year-old teenager who has been battling cancer for several months and whose treatments will soon end.
Emile has been hospitalized since January 16. Tumors compressed his spine and left him paraplegic. Against all expectations, he was able to take a few steps at the end of March.
The family of six’s travel plan had already been canceled once due to the pandemic and it has taken another turn since being struck down by the disease.
A Service Canada employee contacted the family to advise that the passports of Émile and his sister, the only two that had expired, could be renewed out of compassion. The family will exceptionally be able to use the photos of Émile that have expired because they were taken more than six months ago.
During the strike, only requests for emergency or humanitarian situations are processed. The labor dispute, which began on April 19, raises the specter of a new passport crisis like last year.
Minister Karina Gould indicated on Wednesday that the government has the capacity to process the applications which are piling up because they are fewer in number. Normally, Service Canada can receive 20,000 to 25,000 passport applications per day. He receives rather between 3000 and 4000 per day at the moment.
The federal government calls its new offer presented Friday to the nearly 150,000 public service workers who have been on strike for 11 days now “fair, competitive and reasonable” – and warns it is a “final offer”.
In a brief statement released on Saturday, Treasury Board said its latest offer “addresses all remaining demands” from the Canada Public Service Agency (PSAC) and touches on issues like telecommuting. , seniority and subcontracting – three points that stumped in the negotiations.
The federal government, however, did not go into the details of its new offer, reserving this information for the negotiation tables. The union confirmed on Friday that it had received the government’s new offer, but preferred not to comment further due to the resumption of discussions at the bargaining table.
