Canadian vs US Passport

Why is the validity period of a Canadian passport 5 years when a US Passport is valid for 10 years? It such a pain in the ass to get a new passport. Every 5 years you've got to give up your passport, fill out the exact same documents as last time and pay $100. While you wait you can't travel outside the country.

What is so special about Canada that they have to change your passport every 5 years while in the US it's 10 years. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the $100 bucks you pay every time you renew. Let's say 10 million Canadians have to change their passports in a 5 year period (I bet that number is low). Hey that's an additional $1B in revenue to the Canadian Government. I got it.

So I finally got the passport application in. Some interesting observations:

1. First I tried to fill out the application on line. I spent about 1 hour doing that. The theory is that it saves you time when you go to the passport office. The problem is that you have to print the application out with the top and bottom margin set to zero. I have a pretty decent HP laser printer and guess what? It won't accept a zero margin on the top or bottom. So I had to go back and fill out an application manually. You think they would have tested that on more than one printer. After all HP laser printers aren't very popular.

2. Even though you have a valid passport, it doesn't count as ID. Yes, the passport office does not accept their own ID? You have to show other ID which is trivial to forge (as if you were applying for the first time again). She looked at my ID for about 1 second. I don't even think she looked at me. Wouldn't you think they would change the process slightly for those who already have a valid passport that is about to expire? Wouldn't that save time and money?

3. I asked if I could pay some money to expedite the passport since I travel a lot for business. (I heard that you could do that). She said no. Just so you understand I am volunteering to pay the Government more money and they said no. Hey Gov, why wouldn't you take the money?

BTW I got my passport after 3 weeks - not bad Gov. Looks almost exactly like the last passport, except for the new expiry date. I would certainly be willing to pay more for a 10 year passport. Hint.