Two new 10-day passport offices open in northern Ont.

As international travel continues to ramp back up, Service Canada has opened two new passport service sites in northern Ontario that offer 10-day service.

On Wednesday, Service Canada locations in Timmins and Dryden join a total 20 centres across the country where citizens can apply for a passport and receive it by mail in 10 business days, not including mail time.

There are also passport offices in Sault. Ste. Marie, Sudbury and Thunder Bay.

"This allows Canadians to get service closer to home and helps decrease wait times at passport offices," the government said in a news release.

"Canadians who require their passport in less than 10 business days must visit a passport office that offers express or urgent pick-up service and pay for expedited services."

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Service Canada said there are currently no backlogs and passport delivery has returned to pre-pandemic processing times.

"Passport staff have continued to make improvements to service offerings over the past several months and are prepared to handle the first wave of renewals for passports with a validity of 10 years which started being issued in July of 2013," the government said.

"Additionally, for the past several months, Canadians have been able to get real-time updates, 24 hours a day, on the processing of their applications through the online Passport Application Status Checker, which has led to shorter wait times when contacting the Passport Call Centre."