By this time next year, you could be paying up to $225 for a new Canadian passport – called an ePassport and good for 10 years.
It will include an electronic chip encoded with your name, gender, and date and place of birth and a digital portrait of your face.
But until then the standard five year passport will continue to cost $87.
Beatrice Fenelon, a spokesperson with Passport Canada, confirmed the new ePassport is to be launched before the end of 2012 but no decision has yet been made on the price because the agency is “still in the process of consulting Canadians.”
She said the agency will also continue to offer five-year passports and that children’s passports will not exceed five years.
Prime Minister Harper recently paid $225 for a diplomatic ePassport, causing speculation that the price he paid will become the new rate for all ePassports.
