Yes. It's a very good question.
In fact, Mr. Chair, I've expressed that position before the office. We think to look strictly at the assumption that the population will diminish and there will be less requirement for resources is wrong, because there are other populations that will increase the number of clients of Veterans Affairs.
I know for a fact, after a career in the forces—and many people will probably support me on this—that many people who are suffering right now in service are not declaring their injuries because they would be, again, subject to the universality of service and kicked out. When all of these people retire, they will be declaring their injuries and therefore accessing benefits from that.
There are people now who are retired from the armed forces and who have not yet exhibited symptoms of PTSD or other psychological injuries, but they will in the next few years, especially if you look at the number of people who were in Afghanistan. So that will also increase some of those clients of Veterans Affairs Canada.
To date, there are still some people from World War II who are applying for benefits, who have suffered in silence for many years. All of a sudden they realize that they've been limping since 1947, so maybe it is because of their service, and they're still applying for benefits.
To assume the population is going to be smaller.... Yes, we realize it's the reality that we lose 1,200 veterans of World War II every month. But, again, with all of these other things in the hamper and the complexity of the modern cases that have to do with co-morbidity and very intricate case management aspects, this will certainly increase the workload.