To pick up on the admiral's point, certainly my experience with NATO, which again is a bit dated, is that when we send ships to a variety of missions, either NATO or multinational, or whatever, we matter. We do very well. We have first-class ships—world-class ships—and we have world-class crews. However, as I mentioned in my remarks, that only counts when you actually show up. As Jim Boutilier said, if you want to be seen, you need to be seen. So you need to have the mass, and you need to have the capacity at the right level of readiness to be able to actually deploy.
I'll give you some practical examples to answer your first question as to why it's important, or how the away game affects the home game.
One was the campaign against terrorism immediately in the wake of 9/11. It was a long distance away, and in fact, we were part of that. We believed very strongly that it made a difference with respect to the defence of Canada.
More specifically, our recent intervention in counter-piracy off the coast of Somalia is another example where the away game affected the home game. At the time, before the piracy became under control, very large ships were being routinely attacked, routinely captured, and the down-range effect in North America was an immediate spike in the price of fuel simply because of the fact that tankers, to avoid the threat, had to go the long way around and avoid the Suez Canal.