As I said in the House, I believe in the merits and the tenets of the bill without question. There's a little more to that process, of course.
I want to deal with a couple of points in a more general perspective here.
As for the bill itself, when I first introduced this, I wrestled with the narrow scope of C-583, that it really was only going to impact one part of the population in that justice piece. Through my consultations, which were continuous—literally daily I was speaking with the groups and organizations—when we started looking at the timing left for us, and the greatest good and the greatest impact, we started looking at this silo-breaking study as being something that really would be beneficial.
It was largely on the advice and support of many of the groups that are invested, and not just groups and organizations.... As you can imagine, I've been inundated with input from families who have had this experience, people living with children with FASD. I was getting the pure family perspective. The law enforcement community, and groups and organizations in the health community really support what it is that you're going to be able to do with this study.
Also, you did mention the 2006 study. I'll correct you on this. There haven't been a lot of studies. There has been that 2006 study, but since that point in time there's been tremendous evolution in knowledge around FASD, particularly around the field of diagnosis, and that's an important thing for this committee to seize itself with. I think the groups will tell you clearly that we've learned a lot since 2006, and what we can do with that information at the federal level is very important. But right now I don't think that evolution of information has permeated all of the departments the way it should. It is very much making what you're doing worthwhile in topping up that 2006 study, which is, in my mind, at present day a little bit incomplete.