The reason is that we had a very productive federal, provincial, and territorial meeting in Newfoundland, and we're bringing in this legislation. It's going to have an impact. We're giving six months. We could have said five and a half months, or we could have said 4.2 months, but it's six months. It's fairly standard for the coming into force of the legislation. It gives crown attorneys and provincial officials time to study the impact of the bill on their own particular jurisdiction and to get ready to implement the bill.
On October 23rd, 2006. See this statement in context.