Vol. 140, No. 33 — August 19, 2006

Regulations Amending the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Regulations

Statutory authority

Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act

Sponsoring department

Department of Natural Resources

REGULATORY IMPACT
ANALYSIS STATEMENT

(This statement is not part of the Regulations.)

Description

In October 2004 at the Gatineau Plenary, an administrative decision was adopted to limit the validity period of Kimberley Process Certificates to 60 days. An amendment to section 6 of the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Regulations is required to reduce the validity of Canada's Kimberley Process Certificates from 90 to 60 days.

A Kimberley Process Certificate (KPC) is a forgery resistant document with a particular format which identifies a shipment of rough diamonds as being in compliance with the requirements of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.

Benefits and costs

Reducing the validity period will improve the comparability of statistics submitted by Kimberley Process Participants and will limit the potential for misuse of issued Kimberley Process Certificates.

There are no costs associated with this change, neither for Canadian industry which requires the certificates to export their product nor for the federal government which issues the certificates.

The change to the validity period will not require changes in the current practices of the Canadian industry. In the three years since implementation of the certification scheme, most shipments of rough diamonds took place within one week of issuance of Kimberley Process Certificates and all exports of rough diamonds have been within 60 days.

Consultation

In October 2004, at the plenary in Gatineau, Quebec, participants to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, including forty-two governments and one regional economic integration organization (the European Community), adopted a consensus decision establishing the maximum period for the validity of Kimberley Process Certificates at 60 days from the date of issuance. Industry and civil society representatives at that meeting had no objections to this change.

Compliance and enforcement

There will be no changes to compliance and enforcement as a result of this amendment.

Contact

Teresa Trevino, Manager, Kimberley Process Office, Programs Branch, Minerals and Metals Sector, Natural Resources Canada, 580 Booth Street, 9th Floor, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E4, 613-992-7444 (telephone), 613-992-8581 (fax).

PROPOSED REGULATORY TEXT

Notice is hereby given that the Minister of Natural Resources, pursuant to paragraph 35(b) of the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act (see footnote a), proposes to make the annexed Regulations Amending the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Regulations.

Interested persons may make representations with respect to the proposed Regulations within 30 days after the date of publication of this notice. All such representations must cite the Canada Gazette, Part I, and the date of publication of this notice, and be addressed to Louis Perron, Senior Policy Advisor, Diamonds, Programs Branch, Natural Resources Canada, 580 Booth Street, 9th Floor, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E4.

Ottawa, July 28, 2006

GARY LUNN
Minister of Natural Resources

REGULATIONS AMENDING THE EXPORT AND IMPORT OF ROUGH DIAMONDS REGULATIONS

AMENDMENT

1. Section 6 of the Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Regulations (see footnote 1) is replaced by the following:

6. Subject to section 12 of the Act, a Canadian Certificate is valid until 24:00 Greenwich mean time of the day that is 60 days after the date of issue.

COMING INTO FORCE

2. These Regulations come into force on the day on which they are registered.

[33-1-o]

Footnote a

S.C. 2002, c. 25

Footnote 1

SOR/2003-15

NOTICE:
The format of the electronic version of this issue of the Canada Gazette was modified in order to be compatible with hypertext language (HTML). Its content is very similar except for the footnotes, the symbols and the tables.

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