Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, there has been work done on that in the U.S. We have material that we will leave with you that includes indications from the Framingham study, a longitudinal study on health outcomes for people. I think there were 4,000 or 5,000 people in the study over a long period of time.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think CNIB, like all organizations, is struggling a bit in a very loud, competitive world to get its message out. The cold hard fact is that nobody really wants to hear about going blind. Having said that, CNIB has taken a different approach to its communications and public education.

Veterans Affairs committee  There is a medication available now, which has been approved by Health Canada--it's called Lucentis--but it has not yet passed through the common drug review. This is a particular medication that arrests a very particular type of AMD--wet AMD. A much smaller number of people actually have wet AMD.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you.

Veterans Affairs committee  Statistically speaking, I would say yes, it is low, but I can't really tell you any more than that. I have the same sense as the other gentleman that, indeed, we're missing a group, but how we get to that group is the question.

Veterans Affairs committee  Statistically, we don't know. I can give you some figures, but I want to caution everyone that we don't know the details of this. According to Statistics Canada's post-censal data in the participation and activity limitation survey, or PALS, 800,000 people in 2006 identified themselves as having a severe visual impairment.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a shorter time period. Well, macular degeneration, as you know, is a deteriorating eye condition. So what happens is that the person may see us initially with some mild vision loss—maybe mild from our point of view, but not from theirs—and then, a couple of years later, there may have been quite a bit of deterioration, to the point where they're perhaps not seeing much at all.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think Service Canada might be able to answer that as Service Canada expands its mandate. They have a very good communications program right now, but we're not there yet.

Veterans Affairs committee  They're World War II veterans, World War II and one person from the Korean War.

Veterans Affairs committee  We could be wrong, but I think we would know if someone has returned from Afghanistan with vision loss. So to date that has not happened, or it has not happened in a way that either the military or we know.

Veterans Affairs committee  Twenty-eight percent of our revenue comes from government; 8% of that is federal, and that's generally money in our research projects; 20% of it is provincial. So the majority of our income comes from private charitable donations.

Veterans Affairs committee  We are fortunate that in Veterans Affairs we are allowed to bill on a fee-for-service for a certain amount of hours and service delivery. We have just negotiated a new contract with Veterans Affairs, which brings us, I think, into line with what we're doing. In a sense, we are fortunate to be reimbursed to work with veterans.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are levels of eligibility for a veteran, depending on their service in the military. Some veterans are eligible for a more comprehensive menu of services than other veterans, depending on whether they served during World War II, whether they served in combat versus in peacetime.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you.

Veterans Affairs committee  It does and it doesn't. So what could you do about that? From our point of view, I think in your householder, in the material you are sending out, try to ensure the print is a bit larger than you might be used to. You may be doing this already, but you are distributing information as an MP in those ways.