When we undertook the intelligence priority setting review, we did it because we wanted to be, so to speak, at the top of the crow's nest for the country, examining the overall architecture of security and intelligence, while at the same time getting into the engine room, to see how these priorities were, in fact, arrived at.
One of the stumbling blocks we think we happened upon here, which is made very plain in the recommendation, is this question of standing intelligence requirements. There are over 400. It's very difficult to triage and feed 400-plus standing intelligence requirements into a cabinet process. We don't have access to cabinet confidences in this regard, but we see most of the material that has led up to those kinds of discussions and debate.
We think there's real improvement to be made, which is why we're calling on the national security and intelligence adviser to take a much more proactive role. The NSIA is pivotal in the overall architecture of security and intelligence in Canada, and she is best placed, we believe, to streamline and simplify. A lot of good front-line actors in security and intelligence in the country are looking for more clarity, and perhaps a smoother process.
The entire chapter breaks down for Canadians how this works, step by step, and we've honed in on a couple of internal fine-tuning mechanisms that we think would go a certain distance in improving the entire process.