Essentially, the reason we brought in that amendment is that under the common law, but also under the charter, because of section 7 of the charter--which requires that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person, and not to be deprived of that unless it's done in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice--when you have a strict liability offence, similar to the one we have here in proposed subsection 34(2), you have to allow an accused to mount a defence of due diligence, that they weren't negligent in the exercise of their function. To be able to make that requirement we've inserted the word “reasonable”, so that it's clear that if they make reasonable efforts to comply with their obligation--they make several phones calls, but it's not possible to get into communication--that they've shown they've done their due diligence; they attempted to meet their obligation, but because of the circumstances were not able to do so.
On June 4th, 2007. See this statement in context.