Veterans Affairs committee  We are aware of the importance of family physicians. The reality is that family physicians do a lot of Canada's front-line mental health care, de jure or de facto. These people are vital in the care linkage. We go and identify their communities of practice. We speak to them. What we try to provide, wherever possible, is just-in-time support, because whether or not they take a veteran may depend on whether they know they can pick up the phone and say, “I have this guy, and this is happening.

Veterans Affairs committee  As a matter of fact, we do as much outreach as we can. We take people by referral. One of the things we have been trying to do is to bring the services to them as much as possible. Take British Columbia as an example. You know, this is Canada. We have cities along the bottom and a great open expanse.

Veterans Affairs committee  This is an excellent question. Two years ago we reviewed our competencies using the CCSA competency list. We did a survey across the country and took a look at where we were at. We guarantee that each one of our teams has outpatient level 2 competencies, which means that they can screen and assess.

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could, I would like to add one little thing too. When you look at this best practices literature, it gives you group outcomes, but sometimes those populations are not our people. They're not Canadian veterans. We set the system up so that we'll be able to speak directly to how we're doing with our people over a set period of time.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are 11 of them.

Veterans Affairs committee  The first one was created in 2002-2003, and the last one just opened in Halifax.

Veterans Affairs committee  What an excellent question. It's interesting. The reason I say, “Thank you for asking the question”, is that all too often in mental health we look at outputs, but we don't look at outcomes. We look at how many hamburgers we put through the door, but are they edible? We've been concentrating on developing a way to track veteran self-reported outcomes.