Mr. Speaker, as I have responded to questions in the House before, I quite concede the fact that the delays in receiving passports have been long.
They are the result of an extraordinary increase in the numbers of passports requested. The delays are increased as well because of security measures which we have had to take to ensure the integrity of a passport document which is one of the most important documents that Canadians have when they travel abroad.
I assure the hon. member that we are taking steps to reduce the timelines and I hope that within the next couple of weeks we will be able to get this down to a much more reasonable delay.