The Canadian Press
Jordan Press
OTTAWA–The federal government quietly has been making changes to passport offices in a bid to improve security and address concerns that the facilities could be easy targets for a terrorist attack.
Civil servants in passport and other government offices for years have faced bomb threats, and hostility from individuals who are disgruntled, drunk, or suffering mental illnesses.
Internal government documents show senior officials more recently have worried that someone with extremist views might see a passport office as prime target for an attack, particularly if the federal government revoked their passport privileges because they wanted to go abroad to join a terrorist group.
The briefing note to senior officials at Employment and Social Development Canada says the offices now could more easily become targets–or be collateral damage.
“ESDC Passport offices may be considered targets of symbolic value in future attacks,” reads part of the 2015 briefing note marked, “Canadian Eyes Only.”
The Canadian Press obtained a copy of the documents under the Access to Information Act.
Those concerns were stoked after two separate domestic terrorist attacks in October, 2014.
In the first case, Martin Couture-Rouleau hit two soldiers with his car at a strip mall just outside St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent.
Officials had seized his passport that July after police prevented him from flying to Turkey.
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau then killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial in Ottawa before storming Parliament Hill.
He had come to Ottawa from Vancouver after he ran into problems getting a Canadian passport so he could travel to Libya.
Both attackers subsequently were killed.
The second incident prompted ESDC officials to call in the Mounties to review threats for every passport office in the country.
Assessments also were carried out to see what could be done to the physical configuration of spaces, or the layout of services, to better protect the workers inside the office.
The RCMP report from April, 2015 concluded the offices face terrorist and criminal threats, although nothing direct or immediate.
A spokesman for ESDC, which oversees the 151 Service Canada offices that issue passports, said the department has made–and continues to make–changes at existing and soon-to-be-opened facilities in response to the assessments.
Along with physical changes to the offices to increase security, there have been operational changes federal officials hope will lower the risk of an attack.
Among the measures was extending the passport renewal period to 10 years from five years, and letting Canadians renew their passports online to reduce the number of people who had to go to an office.
