First of all, we did not explicitly consider costs, and we were asked to outline a general system that would be the best system in principle. We recognize that any system costs money, but the idea would be to try to get as close to that goal as possible.
What I said in response to the earlier question, and this is just a guess, because the council has not done the costing, was that there would be an increase in cost, but it would be like a kind of bubble, because there would be more services going to these veterans, but the older veterans, the ones who are the target of our report, are dying, as we note in the report, so those costs would not be long term.
Let me add one other point. There may be more cost to Veterans Affairs Canada through implementing such a system, but that doesn't mean there would necessarily be more cost to Canada as a society. There are three kinds of costs: Veterans Affairs Canada costs, health care system costs, and other costs related to health. If you keep people healthier, you can have savings there. Some of the costs of these programs might end up being borne by Health Canada, or if they're borne by Veteran Affairs Canada, it will mean lower costs coming through other aspects of the health care system.
I'm afraid that's as far as I can go with costing, because that's something we leave up to the department itself.