Right. There was a relatively low rate of those who were using provincial social assistance programs. I think it was rarely more than 1% or 2% in any given year.
However, some veterans experienced challenges. Some of them had changes in income upon release. Those who experienced the largest changes in income after release were the medically released, women, and those who served from 10 to 20 years, so they were in mid-career. They were more likely to experience an impact on their career trajectory by leaving in mid-career.
In the area of health, there were a number of findings. One was that there were areas where veterans experienced a higher burden of health issues than other Canadians. One of those was the area of musculoskeletal conditions, such as arthritis. It was about double the rate. Back problems were about double the rate as well. Generally, they had higher levels of problems with disability—that's functioning in the community. However, a lot of this was concentrated in about 16% of that broader population. They didn't have just one condition; they tended to have multiple conditions. So it drew our attention to a population that could have high needs in terms of how they are approached through case management and other services we offer.
A final area we looked at was program reach. We learned that we do very well with some of our populations, especially those who are medically released. That's a population we've targeted since the beginning of the work on the new Veterans Charter. We have a high level of contact with that population, but there are some groups we haven't been reaching, for example, groups that have shorter periods of service, groups that had certain kinds of releases—they may have been released voluntarily—younger veterans who stayed for a shorter period of time, and other categories that concern us in terms of reach and other questions.
That's a short high-level overview.