We use a number of methodologies to help in remote areas when there is an urgent situation. MPs assist greatly. They contact us on behalf of the constituent, and we expedite the process. We use the receiving agents. They contact us, and once we receive the application we expedite it or we send the file itself to one of our local offices. If you're in northern Ontario or northern Manitoba, we would send it to the Winnipeg office and they would issue the passport on an urgent basis there.
We are looking into the new process with the receiving agents whereby they validate your document, so once it's in our system it should take us less than 24 hours to turn that file around. We're trying to change our process so it's more online, and we receive the application and the information instantaneously. For example, by increasing the number of online applications for a renewal application, the time taken to process the application is reduced significantly and we should be able to turn it around again from a local office within 24 hours, so you're not mailing from Ontario to western Canada, as an example.