Do I really need to take my baby to Taipei for her passport?

Taiwan Parenting
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Hope someone can give me some advice!

So I’m a Canadian with a Taiwanese wife. Our baby is about 6 weeks old, and it’s time to get her Canadian citizenship certificate and passport. As we live in Kaohsiung, we’re not so comfortable with taking her on an overnight journey up north. I’ve left a message on the CTOT voicemail service, but no one has gotten back to me yet. Any Canadians out there know if I can go there with all the documents, or do we really need to bring her there in person?

Thanks.

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[quote=“bubbles”]Hope someone can give me some advice!

So I’m a Canadian with a Taiwanese wife. Our baby is about 6 weeks old, and it’s time to get her Canadian citizenship certificate and passport. As we live in Kaohsiung, we’re not so comfortable with taking her on an overnight journey up north. I’ve left a message on the CTOT voicemail service, but no one has gotten back to me yet. Any Canadians out there know if I can go there with all the documents, or do we really need to bring her there in person?

Thanks.[/quote]

I think the law is that you must both be there in person with your child so that there can be no question about whether or not one of you refused to allow the child to travel, or travel with the other one of you.

Since your child is so young, you might try taking her and your wife some place to sign doccumentaion that you were all three there at once and you both agree that she get her Canadian passport and have that notarized–but I doubt that would work. It’s a pretty strict rule.

Just so you know, your wife likely doesn’t need this same precaution to get the child an ROC passport. My husband didn’t.

If you feel your child is too young to travel to Taipei, then why must the child have the passport right away anyway? This doesn’t HAVE to be done right away.

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We are planning to take a trip sometime in the new year, so we need to get ready. Plus, the Canadian government moves slowly, very very slowly. It takes up to 13 months for the citizenship certificate!

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The baby can easily accompany you to Canada on an ROC passport, can’t she? Why would you need to go to the hassle of dealing with Canadian bureaucrats unless you absolutely have to?
use the ROC passport for now and get the Canadian one later, when the kid’s old enough to travel.

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good point, I guess that can work too. I should work with whichever bureaucracy has their heads up their asses the least I suppose.

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I’m pretty sure that you need to bring your baby with you. I know that we did.

You can enter Canada on an R.O.C passport but you will need a visa so you will still have to deal with Canadian bureaucracy.

You don’t need the citizen certificate to get a Canadian passport. When you apply for the Canadian citizenship certificate they can issue your baby a temporary passport that is only good for one year. Our son’s passport arrived within a month so you can probably wait a bit before heading up to Taipei if you want to. We didn’t go until our son was around four months old (I think).

Once the citizenship certificate arrives then you have to go back to the embassy and they will extend the passport for another two years. Babies need to get new passports every three years.

I hope I was clear. If you have any other questions just ask and I will try to answer them.

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Thanks for the replies. Gilgamesh, to get the temporary passport did you need to provide proof of a reason to travel? The CTOT is telling me that they need to see something like a plane ticket.

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When I was applying for the citizenship certificate I just told them that we were planning on going to Canada in the summer and needed the temporary passport. I didn’t need to show a plane ticket or anything like that.

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[quote=“sandman”]The baby can easily accompany you to Canada on an ROC passport, can’t she? Why would you need to go to the hassle of dealing with Canadian bureaucrats unless you absolutely have to?
use the ROC passport for now and get the Canadian one later, when the kid’s old enough to travel.[/quote]

What’s with this “too young to travel” bit? Too young to go to Taipei, too young to go to Canada innit?

Kaohsiung to Taipei is not on overnight trip. Kaohsiung to Canada, I’ll think you’ll find, is.

(I hope you’re taking your baby out to the park to get some fresh air, not cooping her up indoors the whole time!)

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This post may be helpful: Making Canadians
The process takes 15 working days and is very easy. I’ve outlined every step for you. And to follow up (and contradict) what Sandman says, travelling with kids is easiest when they’re infants and still breastfeeding. It’s when they get older that everything becomes more of a hassle. At least that’s been my experience so far. I’ve traveled overseas with my 22 month old daughter 4 times already - her first trip to Canada was at the age of 2 months, and that was the easiest trip so far. :thumbsup:

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[quote=“smithsgj”]
What’s with this “too young to travel” bit? Too young to go to Taipei, too young to go to Canada innit?

Kaohsiung to Taipei is not on overnight trip. Kaohsiung to Canada, I’ll think you’ll find, is.

(I hope you’re taking your baby out to the park to get some fresh air, not cooping her up indoors the whole time!)[/quote]

Definitely not appreciated.

Who said anything about going to Canada now? There’s a pretty big difference between 2 months and one year. As new parents, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be nervous about our very first overnight trip up north.

(I hope you don’t have this kind of attitude for everyone who asks for advice. Advice is always appreciated. Criticism, I’ll think you’ll find, is not).

And for anyone interested, the trip went quite well, although we had to come up with a travel itinerary before they would issue a passport for the potato.

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Thanks, Maoman. It’s absolutely awesome being a parent, but it’s pretty freaky as well!

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[quote=“bubbles”][quote=“smithsgj”]
What’s with this “too young to travel” bit? Too young to go to Taipei, too young to go to Canada innit?

Kaohsiung to Taipei is not on overnight trip. Kaohsiung to Canada, I’ll think you’ll find, is.

(I hope you’re taking your baby out to the park to get some fresh air, not cooping her up indoors the whole time!)[/quote]

Definitely not appreciated.

Who said anything about going to Canada now? There’s a pretty big difference between 2 months and one year. As new parents, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be nervous about our very first overnight trip up north.

(I hope you don’t have this kind of attitude for everyone who asks for advice. Advice is always appreciated. Criticism, I’ll think you’ll find, is not).

And for anyone interested, the trip went quite well, although we had to come up with a travel itinerary before they would issue a passport for the potato.[/quote]

Sorry. I read Sandman’s post, which seemed to say “rather than travel to Taipei to get a passport, take her to Canada on her Taiwan passport”. Then I thought “That’s strange, surely travelling to Canada is a much bigger deal than travelling to Taipei”.

You must be applying for the passport for some reason other than travelling, I suppose. Can’t quite think what, though… Travelling overseas is what people usually use passports for!

(Also, like maoman says, travelling with a tiny baby is a complete piece of cake. The rocking motion of trains especially just sends them off to sleep… good idea to get the kid used to it, less likely to be a nightmare at 1 year+)

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Fair enough.