Just a point of correction. Those are not my gateways; those are the current gateways as they exist. Keeping the Promise is saying you need to shrink those gateways to basically identifying needs. There are some people who have high needs. In another committee it was identified that of the large population of Canadian seniors, there are approximately 12% who have high needs.
Currently, looking at our veterans, it's very difficult to look at the numbers, because there are no precise numbers at Veterans Affairs Canada. But in looking at the numbers, it appears that approximately 14% of clients, if you want to call them that, have been identified as having high needs.
So there are a couple of things that need to be done. I think we need to convince, first of all, Statistics Canada that when they do their census, le recensement à tous les cinq ans, that they must somehow try to identify the target population of veterans across this country. We have to have a firmer handle on the numbers. Keeping in mind the statistics I've just given you, when we anticipate that there might be a slightly higher need--higher statistics of people with a higher need--in our veterans than in our normal Canadian population, then you have to find a way to screen them when they come to get services. There has to be a very quick screening process that would take place at what is currently the National Contact Centre Network, which is really a call centre for Veterans Affairs Canada. There is a simple test, and there is a test in Quebec called PRISMA, which basically asks about seven questions. If somebody answers yea or nay or whatever to those seven basic questions, it could be identified that he's one of those high-needs persons. If he's a high-needs person, then he needs a designated care manager to provide the care package that he needs made up of these various programs that are here under these complex eligibility criteria.
Then that care manager becomes a resource person for that high-needs client. This is basically what Keeping the Promise is recommending. Associated with that, when you go through the PRISMA-like screening, it could be that what you want to recommend to the client who's calling in is to engage in a vigorous health promotion package, which will delay his coming into the gateway as a high-needs person. So in simple terms, this is what we're recommending.
This approach, by the way, would look after the frail veteran of today who, with all due respect to Monsieur Perron, is dying at a high rate. This is what is said in Keeping the Promise, and I won't apologize for that. That frail veteran should be hitting this gateway of high needs not based on a stupid entitlement for hearing loss at 85 years old when all he wants is VIP. This high-needs gateway would look after the Joyce Carters of the world who are asking for VIP, which would actually save money for the Canadian taxpayer. That's what we're saying, too vigorously, I'm sorry, but....