Thank you, Doctor, and thank you for your dedication.
You used a term earlier that I hadn't thought of. You said that Veterans Affairs is a gap filler between the provincial systems. Sometimes, as we heard last night, there's more gap than filler. We all know of the shortages of some of the health care professionals across Canada, of all health care workers, and that must impact some of what you're trying to do for veterans.
We know there's been less and less of a federal presence in the ridings and in the communities. We've moved to local contracts for providing services in rural areas and local contracts with provincial hospitals. Does your group think these are complex enough, or is it something we need to expand on with the provinces? Recently in the media we've seen issues where some of the survivors, or veterans, or their families have issues with some of the provincial health care systems.