Veterans Affairs committee  I think those would be the main issues. Going back to the report, I think Veterans Affairs is in a wonderful position because they can top up other services, really, to meet the needs of older veterans very well. I have long been almost a cheerleader for the department, in the sense of their ability and willingness to really provide a set of services to older Canadians.

Veterans Affairs committee  We work very closely with the department. One of the things they're trying to do--and the veterans organizations are helping considerably--is to make contact with veterans who are not currently clients of the department. That's part of that effort. The integration is the one-stop shop.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. I think Dr. Pringle will speak more to this issue when she meets with you. We use the term “best fit”. Aging well is really having the best fit between who you are, the resources you have, your goals in life, and the setting in which you're living. For you to age well might mean living in a rural area surrounded by your family and being connected to nature.

Veterans Affairs committee  And need.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think it's an excellent question and something the department is going to be wrestling with over the next little while as they begin to put the practical detail to the report we've written. As you know, the report is written at the level of the principles and overall models. It's not written at the level of the detail, which is something that certainly the department is going to work out.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. The committee on which I serve is the gerontology advisory committee, so our mandate always has been, from the beginning, to direct our attention to those older veterans. There is another committee of the department that addresses these kinds of issues related to younger veterans.

Veterans Affairs committee  Because I'm a gerontologist, and that's where my focus is, I really can't speak to that question. In terms of the way the committee structure in the department is organized, Dr. Marshall will be sitting on the younger forces, new veterans charter committee. There's going to be, I think, a fair bit of crossover in direction between the two committees.

Veterans Affairs committee  The Keeping the Promise document was not specifically based on our going out and doing direct interviewing. We drew on a large number of studies of veterans and older adults that have been done both by committee members and other people in North America and elsewhere, to put together the report.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. I think the fundamental principles we began with were these ideas that aging well is an aggregate of physical and mental well-being--having sufficient income and social connections. Those principles are well established in research. We've seen lots of evidence that, in combination, those are going to help people age well, across the life cycle.

Veterans Affairs committee  In terms of support to family members in particular?

Veterans Affairs committee  Well, the main issues that we addressed in this report are determining what it is that would be the best support to that older person and his or her caregiver, in trying to craft those services to the needs of that particular older couple or parent with child caregiver. For older spouses, very often the kinds of services or supports they need are a break from their caregiving.

Veterans Affairs committee  Let me give you an example of a pilot project that Veterans Affairs did in recent years that I think addresses this issue. They were concerned that there were a large number of veterans who were on waiting lists for nursing homes. The intervention project was to offer people a set of enhanced services at home or nursing home placement.

Veterans Affairs committee  One of the things we know generally, in rural Canada, is that older adults who are quite frail and need high levels of care often go sooner into a nursing home than would those in urban areas, and that's primarily because they can't get the community services. It is true, and certainly we've found in our own work, that the smaller the community, the more likely it is that people in the community will be helping out.

Veterans Affairs committee  The medical system has been aware of the challenges of providing medical services, particularly specialist services, in rural Canada for some time. I don't have particular expertise in that whole area on how we're managing. I know that there have been a number of experiments done in issues like tele-health, for example, but I really don't have the expertise to speak to that in much detail.