The chlorine industry supports a regulatory process that maintains public confidence, ensures the business of chemistry remains at the forefront of innovation, and protects jobs. What it cannot support is an excessive and confusing regulatory burden related to chemicals management due to duplicative or competing requirements from different orders of government.

Two examples illustrate the need to harmonize regulations between levels of government:

Ontario Toxics Reduction Legislation

In June 2009, the Province of Ontario passed the Toxics Reduction Act, 2009, as part of its Toxics Reduction Strategy and also passed regulations under the Act in December. Under the legislation's hazard-based approach, chlorine has been identified for Phase 1 implementation in 2010. Reporting qualification is related to the use of the listed substances at Ontario sites along with other qualifying criteria for reporting. Water treatment plants are outside the scope of reporting requirements. However, the introduction of a provincial law requiring annual reports of use reduction planning for chlorine when other provincial law mandates the use of chlorine for drinking water disinfection illustrates the issue of regulatory confusion.

City or Community By-laws

Toronto has enacted a by-law referred to Chem-TRAC http://www.toronto.ca/chemtrac concerning public knowledge of the location of hazardous chemicals – the so-called “Community Right-to-Know” (CRTK) initiative. Other communities are considering similar by-laws.

The Toronto by-law requires businesses and City operations to publicly report their use and release of 25 chemicals. The reporting bylaw came into effect on January 1, 2010. Reporting will be phased in over four years and is intended to encourage businesses to adopt measures to prevent pollution and reduce chemicals.

C4 is among a group of industrial partners who believe that the core objective of Community Right-to-Know is consistent with Responsible Care®. However, we believe there is already appropriate regulation in this area at both federal and provincial levels and we do not support the creation of additional municipal reporting mechanisms. There can also be security-related implications associated with inventory reporting of hazardous substances. C4 believes these by-laws are of unclear and limited value to residents.

C4 favours a risk-based approach, as used in the Government of Canada’s Chemicals Management Plan and favours a more coherent federal-provincial approach for chemicals management regulations.

®Responsible Care is a certification mark of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada