Veterans Affairs committee  You've raised a very good point. In terms of thinking outside of the box.... The Royal Canadian Legion has 1,600 branches across the country. They're not all located in big cities. They can be, as you say, the anchor, the cornerstone, for rural communities. Maybe something bold has to happen.

Veterans Affairs committee  In terms of the question about the continuity of care from the psychologue and National Defence, we like to be in a position of never changing a supplier. So if it were possible to have the same psychologue who's in National Defence look after a veteran when that person leaves, that would be ideal.

Veterans Affairs committee  The short answer is yes. When you do your review of the U.S. DVA, you'll find they have an electronic health record that is remarkable. They'll give you a briefing on that. It's quite a step forward. We're certainly looking pretty hard at that to overcome some of the stovepiping that can go on.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a good question. On the direct surveying of people who are not our clients or aren't eligible, I guess we did it by proxy. We were a little concerned about building up expectations, especially among people whose average age is 84, and then, as they often do, political trade-offs have to be made, and we might have encouraged somebody and not done something for them.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, and in terms of the younger veteran--and maybe we should have done the survey. I'm just giving you an indication of what the thinking was with the older veterans. We are doing focus groups with the younger ones. We did at the time of the new veterans charter. In any changes we're proposing--and it has been raised that there was a commitment that there would be changes when we got some experience with the new veterans charter--we will be engaging the younger veterans in testing some of the gaps that we think are there.

Veterans Affairs committee  What page is that, sir?

Veterans Affairs committee  The number is going up.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. We can get you details on that, but the trend line is up. Of course, people of an average age of 85 tend to consume more health care than younger people. The CF veterans who are coming in--some of them haven't come out of the military from service in Afghanistan yet, but when they do, some of them are pretty seriously disabled, and that number will go up again.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll answer until I get into trouble and Ken kicks me under the table. I've been getting a lot of kicks in the last few minutes. On one of the questions you asked, I alluded earlier to the senior international forum--which includes the likes of me, Ken, and the deputy minister--of five countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S.

Veterans Affairs committee  It could very well be that we could invest that money and have it paid out as an annuity. That's a possibility, too. There's nothing preventing that. I don't know of any circumstances in which that's been requested, and I don't know that we've made high enough disability awards for PTSD yet where that might have been a factor.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm going to have trouble remembering what they all are. The earlier one was about why a very wealthy person gets a hearing aid and another person is denied it just because of an income line. One of the problems of history is that it provides two gates into health care. One is a pension gate.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, and I'm only explaining that, Mr. Stoffer; I'm not defending it. What was the second question?

Veterans Affairs committee  We heard a great deal about this before the new veterans charter was brought in. Politicians and others expressed concern, and we understood that. We will not provide lump-sum money to an individual. We will provide it to the public trustee when it is clear that that individual is going to do harm to themselves or others.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm sorry, I did not understand your question at first. It's a very good one. One part of the mental health strategy, which we're now working on, is for these OSI clinics to be able to provide a service to family physicians. It requires an individual to have a family physician or access to a clinic.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll attempt to reply in English, if that's all right, si' c'est acceptable. Living in condominiums has been an issue because the groundskeeping fees are included in the condominium fees. We are reviewing our policy to ensure there is no unfairness to someone, where they're having to pay for groundskeeping but they're not having to pay for it directly; it's in the condo fees.