We have done analyses of this over the years. Our best guesstimates at this point--and I'll come back to why we're calling it that--are somewhere in the order of one-sixth to one-eighth of the cost of going into a long-term care facility.
I don't want to say that's the definitive figure because there are policy analysts who will say that those are just our costs; maybe there are costs that accrued in the province we were dealing in that we're not aware of and that we actually haven't counted. That's one of the reasons we're doing this study in Ontario--to actually roll up all the costs so that we'll have a definitive study that either makes the case or refutes the case.
My strong belief is that it's going to very strongly make the case. It's clear that the veterans independence program and programs like it have a huge payoff--not only on the cost side, but also, as you mentioned, Ms. Hinton, in the benefit of staying at home contributing to a healthier lifestyle. I think it's a very important study.
The other thing I would like to mention is that in comparing the VIP program of keeping people at home versus putting them into long-term care, it may be possible to look at other arrangements that may be more costly along the road, but those arrangements may still be less costly than the long-term care solution. Mr. Perron mentioned, for example, what's going on in Quebec, and other provinces are also quite innovative on that front.