Government Takes Steps to Enhance the Way New Chemical Information is Acquired; Stakeholders will be Consulted

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The Government of Canada has recently taken steps to enhance the way new information on chemicals is acquired and evaluated from the other industry, provincial, national and international sources.

The enhancements to the process currently employed by the government’s Chemicals Management Plan (CMP) are outlined in Approach for identification of chemicals and polymers as risk assessment priorities under Part 5 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA 1999).

The document outlines a more systematic compilation and review of information from a large number of information sources in order to enable the Government of Canada to be better positioned to recognize concerns, to track emerging issues, and to identify and prioritize substances requiring further work.

Under Part 5 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA 1999), Environment Canada and Health Canada were required to complete the categorization of approximately 23,000 existing substances on Canada's Domestic Substances List (DSL).

The core of the risk assessment work currently being conducted under the CMP is comprised of approximately 4,300 prioritized substances, along with the annual receipt of 400 to 500 New Substance Notifications.

Mechanisms currently used to help to identify candidates for risk assessment include: results of the categorization of the DSL; industry information; information exchange and review of decisions of other jurisdictions; nominations to the Priority Substances List; new substances notifications; emerging science and monitoring; and international assessment or data collection.

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