Yes, I believe the cart is before the horse in many cases. As to policy strategy, different things are relevant to different countries and different strategic cultures. In order to prioritize and not have aspirational—as opposed to achievable—frameworks, strategies and concept papers, we need to lay down what is at the root of all these strategies. That's why we argued in that article for the articulation and codification of national interests. For instance, a defence policy is all about protecting, preserving, promoting and defending those interests.
The codification and articulation of a national interest can also strengthen the social fabric of a country, which is terribly important for a diverse country like Canada. To go into any corner of the country and have communities be able to stand up and say, “The heart of Canadian society is A, B, C, D and E” is tremendously powerful. I've seen this by facilitating the national security strategies of many other countries.
I think a national security framework is something that other government frameworks are subordinate to. National security, as the previous panel pointed out, is hip to hip these days with economic security. National security is almost everything. It's the biggest macro strategic tool of government. At the heart of it is something that does not and should not move with different political administrations, something that's the anchor of the ship in rocky waters: national interests. Having a dialogue around them, laying them down and allowing them to be the root of subsequent strategies are important.
At the moment, I feel that the Indo-Pacific strategy, the feminist international foreign assistance program and so on—jumping a bit further down—are very important cogs of the system, but they're cogs. There should be a system that articulates priorities and is very clear about what Canada is not going to do at the moment, as well.