Canada Consults on Pest Control Products Regulation

Health Canada has recommended several changes to the pest control products regulation which would reduce the burden on administrative and regulatory laws.

Recommended Changes include the following:

• Extension of the validity period for certain emergency registrations from one year to three years; 
• Exemption of the antimicrobials that are used in treating articles and regulated under the Food and Drugs Act, Feeds Act or Fertilisers Act; and  
• Provision of the ability to deny applications for products prohibited under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).  

The draft proposal also includes the removal of the limit for n-nitrosodi-n-propylamine (NDPA), an impurity in pest control products that is a by-product of the chemical synthesis of certain compounds. Health Canada informs that this limit – applied in section 19 of the Regulation, is unnecessary because it already evaluates NDPA levels in the health and environmental risk assessment.  

The agency is also seeking clarity on the existing requirements and is trying to establish a definition for treated articles, along with setting out authorisation criteria which will imply that a treated article would not have to be registered under the pest control products regulation if the antimicrobial preservative is registered under the pest control products Act, if use is limited to preventing degradation or damage to the product from micro-organisms; and if the article is treated in accordance with approved application rates, method of application and uses of the registered antimicrobial preservative. 

The recommended changes aim to streamline information requirements for those sites that manufacture pest control products not classified as microbial agents.  

Public consultation on the amendment is open until 11 June 2022. The latest consultation of 2022 follows two regulatory pre-consultations conducted by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency in 2018 and 2020.

The proposed amendments would come into force after six months of its publication in the Canada Gazette.