I would say two things.
First of all, to reiterate—and I'm happy to expand on this if it's of interest to the committee—having a security clearance at whatever level and having access to classified information is not a holy grail. It does not provide you with the kind of broad-based knowledge that I think all parliamentarians should have and need to have about national security and intelligence issues. There is a vast amount of information in the public domain available to parliamentarians and Canadians that is, I suspect, little studied, including past reports from NSICOP, NSIRA, the intelligence commissioner's office and their predecessors, and all the other kinds of public documents that are put out.
I would argue that understanding that public domain information is going to be far more valuable than having access to bits and pieces of classified intelligence from the security and intelligence community. I base that, in part, on my own experience of what is available. It's wonderful to have a top secret clearance. It's exciting. You get access to special information. Secret clearance is less valuable. Everybody has a secret clearance in the government, but it's not a holy grail.