As I mentioned in my opening remarks, part of the challenge is that so many of the processes and reports of DND are paper-based. Because of the size and geographic spread right around the globe of many of our departments and operations, that can be significantly challenging in meeting the timelines of an ATIP request. Digitizing those processes along with many other processes in the administration of the Canadian Armed Forces is a significant undertaking and a necessary undertaking to make sure that information is more readily available.
Quite often, when the ATIP requests come in, we want to make sure that our response is comprehensive and thorough, but there are many different files and documents that need to be searched, and that can be time-consuming. There are also staffing pressures when dealing with that that we are working hard to meet. That's a responsibility, primarily, of the officials I have before me today. We're also making sure that we continue to advance our work in digitizing those processes. It's going to be a significant improvement in our ability to access that information in a more timely way.
By the way, very similar challenges were faced in my Public Safety portfolio and with a number of our other federal departments as well. These are important investments that we are making in order to be more responsive and more quickly responsive to Canadians' concerns about access to information.