December deadline for next chemical batch.

The federal government has announced that industry and other stakeholders will have until December 18, 2007 to provide information on how they are safely managing and using 19 chemical substances identified as high priorities for action under the chemicals management plan.

"We are putting industry on notice about these substances," said Health Minister Tony Clement. "If the information we receive shows that more needs to be done to safely manage these chemicals, we will work with industry and our stakeholders to take strong and immediate action to protect the health of Canadians and the environment."

The 19 substances comprise the third in a series of 12 batches of high priority substances that were identified following Canada's worldleading categorization of legacy chemical substances last fall. Government scientists are already analyzing the information gathered on the first batch of substances and will do the same on the second batch.

Ottawa will assess the information it receives from this and other sources to decide on the appropriate actions required. Manufacturers, importers, and industrial users of high priority substances will have to provide Environment Canada and Health Canada with information on batches of 15 to 30 substances every few months. There are 193 substances in total, and the process to address all of them is estimated to take three years.

Camford Chemical Report