Foreign policy, like national defence, has a greater capacity for non-partisan, all-party support. When I was chairman of the foreign affairs committee, we had all-party support for every single report we produced, and there's a better opportunity for that in defence and security and foreign affairs. While I'm hearing what the admiral is saying, if I put my former defence minister hat on, I would say that if the committees—the parliamentarians—are less partisan and want to work together, that too would be an important feature.
I put it to you, Admiral, that a serving officer wouldn't want to go in and figure they were feeding something that was going to turn into a political frenzy and a debate. They want to get in and have like-minded people saying to one another, “What can we do for the good of the country?” That's what they want to do. That's what their interests are. That's what I like to believe the members of the committee want to do, so the less we can make it a partisan issue, and the more we can make it a joint issue about the security of the country, the more frankness you'll get from everybody who's participating.