Ontario resident Diana Mayer looked in her rural mailbox by the side of the road, saw the envelope from Passport Canada, and thought there must be a mistake.

"I thought, no -- this couldn't possibly be my passport," Mayer told CTV. "This shouldn't be happening."

Mayer knew the government is only supposed to send passports out by courier or registered mail. She was right -- the package didn't include her new passport. But what she did find inside bothered her just as much.

"When I opened it I was really concerned."

Passport Canada had sent back her health card, birth certificate and old passport -- the identity documents she had sent in with her passport application. The envelope arrived by regular mail, closed at the back with scotch tape. It sat in her mailbox for hours -- bearing the Passport Canada logo -- where it could have easily been stolen.

"No explanation as to where is my passport -- my new passport -- nothing," she said. "They didn't take any time to look after the documents they put in that package."

She tried calling Passport Canada, several times, for an explanation. She got their voice recording, saying they were too busy to take her call: "We have reached the limit on the number of callers that can be waiting in line."

"How long does it take for them to figure out how much extra staffing or beefing up or whatever it is they need to do?" Mayer asked.

In these days of mail and identity theft, she is amazed Canada's passport offices could be so sloppy.

"They're the people that you should be able to trust to handle your papers, your documentation," Mayer said. "Did it not hit them that this is a little off?"

Mayer's complaint is just one of several CTV News has heard about Passport Canada, since passports became mandatory for Canadians wanting to travel by air to the U.S. The change came into effect January 23. Almost two months later, in-person applicants are still forced to wait in line at Canada's passport offices. Some are waiting at home -- for word of their passports -- several weeks after applying.

Those who applied by mail are the worst off, though. Passport Canada told CTV News the mail-in applications that arrived six weeks ago or later are still sitting in huge piles, unopened. They estimate mail-ins are taking nine weeks to process from the time they are received.

"It seems as though one hand doesn't know what the other is doing," said Maria Campbell, who works in Liberal MP Belinda Stronach's riding office in Newmarket-Aurora.

MPs across Canada are calling the passport office on behalf of their constituents, trying to track down applications and help fasttrack the process. Campbell told CTV News she's heard from several people who were told they would have their passport by now and still have no documents and no answers.

"These are not people who are procrastinators," Campbell said. "These people were prepared. They had their documents looked over. They had given themselves ample time to get the passports."

"I have had to cancel a trip to Mexico," Carol Mitchell told CTV News from Victoria, B.C. "A friend who applied even earlier has had to cancel her trip. An associate's husband still hasn't received his and he is planning to go to China. He waited three separate days in line."

"There is no real way (except maybe a few days in a lineup) to really talk to the people," Mitchell said. "The timeline reported on-line has not even been close to what has really happened. I still don't know if they have even received it and my departure date has passed."

Passport Canada told CTV News its system was designed to handle up to 14,000 applications per day Since the U.S. rule change, the offices are receiving approximately 22,000 per day.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser saw the potential for problems several months ago. Fraser told CTV News recent audits of Passport Canada found regional offices were not prepared for an onslaught of new applicants.

"None of them or very few of them had any formal contingency plans to deal with peaks in volume," Fraser said. "Many of the offices were not ready for an increase in demand."

In the last two years, Fraser has also flagged gaps in security at passport offices, although she has noted improvements.

CTV News asked Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay to explain why his department wasn't more prepared, for the U.S. change he knew was coming. He told us they're in the process of catching up now.

"By the end of March, we hope to have 500 (new hires) into the system. We hope to have more passport receiving agents in the field we hope to have been able to dissipate, a little, the backlog," MacKay said.

"The numbers are coming in such huge volume that the system has been stretched to the max," he said. "But I have nothing but admiration for the people at Passport Canada who are dealing with this situation."

Diana Mayer finally did receive her passport -- two weeks after her identification was sent back -- after she asked her MP for help. Passport Canada told CTV News her I.D. shouldn't have been sent by regular mail. Spokesperson Fabien Lengelle told us it was done by an inexperienced person working overtime -- a mistake, he said -- and they are sorry.

Mayer believes five years after 9-11, mistakes like that just shouldn't happen. "I thought by now they would have figured things out."

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