Paying for paranoia
Last week the US govmint announced that, starting in December 2006, Canadians will need to have a passport if they wish to enter the land of the (not so) free by air or by sea. People entering by car can wait until December 2007.
Please reread the above paragraph and note that you still have 20-32 months to get your passport!!!
Right now passport offices are being overwhelmed by the first-timers, the confused and the dimwitted, thus wasting the time of people who (1) know how to fill out forms, (2) need to renew their expiring passport and (3) are actually going to a passport-requiring country in two months.
To top it off, I forgot to bring my iPod so I had to spend 2 1/2 hours going through an entire Time Magazine while listening to people complain and make excuses.
Once I finally made it to the booth, I got to do what I always have to do every five years…confirm to the passport agent that there is indeed another Nantel, with the same birthday, who looks exactly like me and is currently living in Sherbrooke.
Related posts:
The day after that news was released, it was announced that people in USA will also need a passport to get in Canada.
I would say that this is normal and that Europeans have always had to live with this (I remember constant checks on my 1989 trip) except that this is not at all true now… now get from Calais to Gibraltar without any ID whatsoever!