Mr. Chair, I have some metrics that I can share with you just briefly, based on forecasts. To put it in a context I think will make far more sense.
If we look at our traditional veterans today, we see that we're serving about 63,000 traditional veterans. By 2015 that's forecast to drop to 36,000 and, by 2020, to 13,000. On the other side of that ledger, however, for the CF veterans we're serving today, we have about 68,000. It's anticipated that it will be around 85,000 by 2015. By 2020, it will be in the vicinity of 99,000.
When you look at the totals, however, they will decline, because of the disproportionate ratio of traditional veterans to modern-day veterans. When you look at the overall numbers, we are forecasting a decline from roughly 208,000 veterans and their survivors as clients today to about 167,000 by 2020.
So it's a declining number of clients for the department and, as Charlotte indicated earlier, that creates a different challenge, because the complexity of the issues the modern-day veterans are coming forward with to Veterans Affairs is increasing. So our challenge is to find that balance between a resource framework that will support both the numbers—realistically—and the challenges. In a sense, that's what transformation is about— to take us to that end state.