New Substances Program
Operational Policies Manual
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3. Processing New Substances Notifications
C. Operational Policy for Early Termination of
Assessment Periods
Purpose
This document describes Environment Canada's operational policy for the
early termination of assessment periods under the Canadian Environmental
Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA 1999) and the New Substances Notification
Regulations (NSNR).
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Application
This document applies to all New Substances Notifications.
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Context
Under section 81 and section 106 of CEPA 1999, importers and manufacturers
of new substances must provide prescribed information so that Environment
Canada and Health Canada can assess the new substances to determine if
they are "toxic" (in accordance with the criteria set out
in section 64 of CEPA 1999) or capable of becoming "toxic."
A substance is considered "new" if it is not listed on the
Domestic Substances List (DSL). The notification requirements are established
in the NSNR.
Import or manufacture of a new substance is not allowed until the period
for assessment, as established in the NSNR, has expired. However, subsection
83(6) for chemicals and polymers, and subsection 108(6) for living organisms,
of CEPA 1999 allows for assessments to be terminated at an earlier time.
This means that import or manufacture of a substance may commence at that
time.
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Operational Policy
All new substances and Significant New Activity Notifications (SNAN's)
are eligible for consideration for early termination if the evaluation
is completed by Health Canada and Environment Canada prior to the end
of the assessment period.
These provisions enable the program to take advantage of opportunities
which could result in early completion of notifications (e.g. when the
substance has already been assessed). Administrative procedures have been
implemented to identify those notifications which have been completed
early, thereby facilitating the application of the provisions to these
files.
It should be noted that the program will not compromise the quality of
its risk assessment or its ability to deal with other notifications in
a timely fashion in order to apply an early termination to a notification.
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Who Should and How To
Notify
Program Initiatives