I just got my passport. $87 and it had to be over-nighted (add $38).
Going to Ottawa.

This was last month and I had to leave early on vacation wondering if Fed Ex would deliver it while I was gone. Less than five minutes after I got on the road for my 1,500 mile vacation; I got a call from Passport Canada in FRENCH no less to call a certain number.
Irritated, I turned around and decided to use my home phone and not my cell (which the call had come in on).

Some 23 yr. old passport preparer reading from a book told me my pictures were "too small and too yellow". I told him I had them done at Walgreens here in the US where they advertise Passport photos and that I had made sure the photographer had measured the head size properly. He then said, "but I am looking at your photo, and it is too "yellow". Then he told me my signature had gone outside the "box".....a grey area border. (Obviously your signature is not your signature unless you keep it in the confines of a box; no room for artistic expression, or anything resembling your "signature".)

He wanted me to re-do my passport. THIS after making copies of several ID's and having them notarized.....I was livid. They were holding on to my birth certificate and I had to have the new documents in to them before XXx amount of days.

I was soo stressed out, I was cursing under my breath at this new Homeland Security law. After all, I had lived at the same address for more than 20 years, and I haven't changed all that much (my signature either). I told him I had just packed the car and my printer and wasn't going to let this ruin my vacation. Then I drove off, seething for the first couple of hundred miles until I chilled out.

When I got back from vacation, I called and asked to speak to a supervisor. They had changed their minds on re-doing the photos and the notarizations. But I had to re-do my signature and get THAT notarized and FED EX it to them again......another $38. And I was wondering whether that would get to me before I had to move.
Signature required. The stress was building again.

All this just so I could visit my parents next spring. Something in all my 30 years of travelling back and forth to Canada I never had to do. Right after it arrived, I heard they were going to use a new biometric card instead. Wonder what that's going to cost?

I can't imagine if I had this much trouble, what it must be like for a foreigner who moves around a lot.