Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to have you with us.
Like my colleague Mr. Valley, I come from a rural, remote area of Canada. I come from Labrador. We have some veterans, of course. This is not a unique circumstance given the size of Canada and its geography. I'm just wondering, in terms of the profile of your veterans, how many people would live in sort of rural or remote areas within the United States, as opposed to the number of people who live in primarily urban areas? How does that affect service delivery? We find in the rural, remote areas there are obviously fewer services, and the accessibility issues are compounded.
As well, there's a heavy emphasis here--and I appreciate your efforts, and I'm sure our country will be moving in this direction--on the technology aspect of the delivery of services, particularly with the HealtheVet program. I'm just wondering, because it's based on technology, and I'm looking at it from the rural and remote aspect again, if there is widespread Internet access out there in rural and remote parts of the United States. Do people have access to this type of technology and the hardware required so they can even take advantage of this? We tried to use technology as a bridge to overcome some of the geographic boundaries, but sometimes, for instance in some parts of Canada, there is no Internet access whatsoever, or what is there is very primitive by certain standards today.
I'd just like to understand a little better what the situation is in the United States in that regard, and how you're addressing that.