Thank you.
That's a very good question. I'm going to try to hit all the answers, but certainly I think I'll start off with saying that our concern—I've expressed this, I believe, to the committee before—is with the fact that a lot of people are suffering in silence. Some of them do this because they're proud. Some of them because they don't know what's available for them. Basically, I think that point in my address speaks to that. There are a lot of people out there, and the statistics come from the study that was actually done by Veterans Affairs Canada and DND, in a life after service study.
Basically, I think that's what the important thing is.
In the past, people had to self identify, and there was no advertising done about VAC programs, so people suffered in silence, not knowing that something's happening to them. Also, as I mentioned before in front of this committee, we have people now who are serving in uniform both in the CF and the RCMP who are suffering in silence because they don't want to lose their careers. There will be unmet needs there as well that will flow over to Veterans Affairs Canada when they fully retire.
Also, in regard to your question related to homelessness, homelessness, of course, is only a factor. There are other things associated with it, like dependencies and those sorts of things. The thing is that what's important there are again the communications and the strategy at Veterans Affairs Canada. We have been pushing for a national strategy on homelessness, and I think it's an important thing to do, and we're certainly pushing Veterans Affairs Canada to come up with that.
Basically, I think that covers pretty well the aspects that you've asked about. Again, I think communication is by far one of the key elements in all of this. Veterans have to come forward and communicate with the department, but the department also has to be straightforward with the veteran community and advertise what it is that's available for them.