I has been pretty much impossible to travel out of the USA by air without a passport to anywhere (including Canada) for the last 5-7 years. The airlines have been insisting on passports for travel out of the USA for a while. So, I really have no idea what this chain is about.
Amen, brother!
Trying to get into Canada by air without a passport will also subject you to additional screening in Canada and a significant possibilty of being denied entry, as well as airline relunctance to board you at you departure airport, and it has forever.
Having nearly lost a vacation once to the unwritten Canadian rules (and only gotten in by appealing to a more senior immigration officer), I applied the Joe Paterno rule and promptly came home and signed up. It much expedites your repatriation process as well. Your political feelings aside its worth sticking a crowbar in your wallet and getting one when you don't have an immediate need if you think you may ever go there again.
My sympathy is for those those holding expiring passports caught in the middle of this crunch, but the meltdown is more about new applicants not ordering last year when anyone with foresight and no passport could have seen it coming.
The most useful new posts would be from persons who have recently received passports without invoking extrordinary measures. Just how long is it taking a person who works through a local post office and does or does not pay the USPS expedit fee to get routine processing? The problem is more about predictability that actual elapsed time.