The veterans independence program has been described as probably the most generous broad-scope home care program in Canada. I would hazard to say there is no provincial program in Canada that has the scope of services the VIP program has.
The program was designed at a time when most of the veterans were not very old but were getting older. The program was initially designed in 1981. The services from that time have undergone a lot of change in the last 15 or 20 years. We now have a program that has an abundance of services, that are designed to support a very elderly client, for example, such as personal care and nursing services in the home and so on.
At the same time, if you are a younger veteran who has had a catastrophic injury, an amputee, for example, and you need assistance with your yard maintenance, housekeeping, being able to get to services and so on, the program makes all of those types of services available to a younger veteran who has different needs.
We are constantly looking at the program and designing small changes to enable it to be much more suited to a younger population.