New Ontario health cards not eligible for passport applications

A change to Ontario’s health cards has made it difficult for some residents of the province to obtain Canadian passports.

The CBC reported that Ontarians with the province’s new gender-neutral health cards, which began to circulate in June, are unable to use the card as a form of identification when applying for a passport, which currently requires proof of gender.

While ServiceOntario (which administers the health card program) is currently in talks with the federal government to resolve the issue, Ontario residents who want to use the new card for a passport application can get a receipt from ServiceOntario containing the required identifying information, CBC reported. A spokesperson for the federal government quoted in the report stated that it was not consulted by the province on the health card change.

According to a statement by the Ontario government, the change to the health card was made "to ensure the fair, ethical and equitable treatment of people with trans and non-binary gender identity." Similarly, starting in 2017, Ontario residents will also have the option to identify their gender with an ‘X’ on their driver’s licence.