February 25, 2021, 5 pm, the program “Today in Toronto with Manuel Alexandre” is on GoLive Tv.

As promised, on the last Thursday of each month, the Consul General of Portugal in Toronto, Dr. José Mendes will be present to inform the Portuguese community about the activities of the Consulate.

In a simple and committed way, Mr. Consul and his collaborators, were in this program essentially to answer the questions/suggestions sent to them via Facebook “inquireaoconsulado@gmail.com”.

After the usual presentations and thanks, Dr. José Mendes said that this was the second time that he had the honour and satisfaction of addressing the community, on this television program and thus being able to answer the many questions received in the last days.

“Access the Consulate’s services from your home, don’t move around unnecessarily”, this is today’s topic and I wish it to be very clear to our citizens.

He went on to state that on March 25, measures to relieve the confines of COVID-19 will be announced. From that date on, we will resume the schedules for consular acts, however, we cannot even imagine that this is a return to normality prior to the pandemic.

Nobody deceives themselves, we will continue to respect social distancing, health protection standards and the capacity limit of the facilities and the requirements imposed on the building where we are located, said Mr. Consul.

Not hesitating to repeat himself, he stressed that there will only be scheduling for acts that cannot be resolved online. There are already ways in place to avoid travel to the Consulate, a more comfortable basis for resolving your affairs, continued the Consul, saying that he understood the difficulties of people of older generations in dealing with information technology, so he suggested that they go to someone in the community, for example in bakeries, supermarkets, younger people, children or grandchildren so that they can help them in this task.

Then he introduced his collaborator Daniela Fresco so that she could present all the variety of consular acts that can be done from home.

Daniela took the floor and started by enumerating the names of the people who sent questions and noted that almost all of them referred to the issue of renewing their citizen’s card or passport.

Then came the answer:

• Renewal of the citizen card can only be done online (over 25 years)
• Renewal of passports or requests for Portuguese nationality can only be made in person at the Consulate (there will be exceptions for urgent cases, duly justified and for any information, you should contact by consulado.toronto@mne.pt.

Using the digital mobile key, you can access various public services and request documents, for example:

• Criminal record
• Certificates – birth, marriage, death.
• Renewal of citizenship card (+25 years)
• Renewal of driving license
• Opening a bank account (Portugal)
• Scheduling medical appointments (SNS in Portugal).

The solution to benefit from these services is to obtain your digital mobile key (code/pin, personal, associated with the citizen card) that you must request at the Consulate.

Time was running fast, so Dr. José Mendes did not want to leave without mentioning that “those who use online services, provide an enormous civic service, as they free up more space for those who do not know or have no means to do so ”.

“So soon, our life will not be what it used to be”

This is another phrase that demonstrates the concern of Mr. Consul, who left a note of thanks to GoLive Tv, Mr. Manuel Alexandre and his collaborator Daniela Fresco.

Goodbyes followed and another good news was given by presenter Manuel Alexandre, who announced his presence on the program of Mr. João Ambassador of Portugal in Ottawa, Dr. João Câmara, shortly.

We look forward to it ..

Carlos Lima