Senator Lankin: Thank you, Senator Gold. I do understand the jurisdictional questions. When I was Minister of Health in Ontario, the ministry brought me a proposal to add a billing code to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, or OHIP, to cover female circumcision. I said no, and I refused to take it to cabinet. I heard, then, from many people and most particularly mothers who were desperate to protect their daughters from this practice, whether it was being done under the guise of a vacation to a homeland or here in our country, and we know that it is being done here. Those mothers, some of whom I have reached back out to, do not know about the Criminal Code provision. Publicizing it is an important thing.

You read my mind a little bit in your answer, so I will ask you specifically: Will you ask the government whether they would support a review of the law to determine its impact on deterrence, by either supporting a bill that we can bring forward here in the Senate, through a motion for such a study or, better yet, with an announcement that they will undertake such a review and that it will have started and be under way by this fall?