Well, one of the things I know this committee has been debating is, do you do a foreign policy review? What I'd like to see is what we did in the nineties when we had a joint parliamentary committee of the Senate and the House that toured the country looking at our broad foreign relationships, which included defence and development as well.
I think parliamentarians are the best placed to listen to Canadians. You represent Canadians. In crossing the country, you'll get that wide perspective of views.
They came out with a report in about six months. That's much more effective than throwing it to Global Affairs, where doing these things is like a visit from the Dementors. It takes years and years before we get anything out. Look at our Indo-Pacific strategy, which took five or six years, and we're still wrestling with an Arctic framework.
I would say to you as parliamentarians that if you say, “Let's do this,” and you can do it in six months, I think that would make a lot of sense, and you would come out with the bare bones: “Here's what Canadian interests are and here's how our values support our interests, but here's what we as parliamentarians think you should focus on.”
I find that sometimes it's impossible within Global Affairs or some of the departments to be able to agree on anything about where our priorities should be. That's the role of government, and I think that takes us back to parliamentarians and your role to get out, listen, report and list those priorities.