Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To Mrs. Foote, thank you for being there. It was a great event in Ottawa when we officially opened the clinic. And I thank the two Judys for attending, as well as Scott.
I should remember where we have all these places, but I do have them listed here so I won't forget any of them. I hope I'll answer the question satisfactorily, because there are some other things in that question that I think have to be addressed as well.
The centres we've identified are in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which is really because of Gagetown; Montreal, which speaks for itself; Quebec City, London, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, and Ottawa. Those are in addition to the five centres that DND has up and running now, which are basically the same types of centres.
In terms of travel, we support the veterans to get to one of those destination sites or one of those clinics.
On why we have identified those sites, Fredericton speaks for itself because of Base Gagetown, which by land mass is still the biggest base in the Commonwealth, if I'm not mistaken. Montreal is a huge city.
On top of that, one of the things we have to do, which is very difficult to do in some of these areas, is identify the professional staff who will actually be there for our clients. So we strategically brought that into the equation. When we're identifying an area like Montreal, you have the psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and all the support staff. You have a major airport, which makes it easier for veterans to get in and out. Those factors are all part of determining whether it should be in Montreal or some other city.
So we have one in Montreal and one in Quebec to service the Quebec area. Valcartier is in fairly close proximity. So those are some of the reasons why those cities, and bigger cities, were chosen, because of the professional staff and less difficulty getting in and out of those cities. I live two hours from the nearest airport, so it wouldn't be the right place to put one of these clinics. So that's some of the decision-making around it.
The good news is that we've had no difficulty--I believe, Deputy--in staffing any of these clinics across the country. We have a good relationship with the health authorities in all of those centres, so we've had no difficulty. We've gone into agreements with the provinces and health service districts in all areas to establish these, so we have extremely good working relationships.
I hope that answers most of your questions, if not all of them.