Thank you for the question.
As many of you know, the development of risk assessments is a very data-intensive type of process, and of course we do all assessments in collaboration with our colleagues at Health Canada.
Examining health and environmental data to determine risk takes time. When we do publish a draft, there are times when the public consultation period on those draft assessments delivers new information to us. It's sometimes new data or new studies. It's information we need to consider. Depending on the feedback we receive from the public, there may be times when we have to re-examine how we've conducted our exposure models and things of that nature.
Sometimes other jurisdictions are also conducting similar studies or assessments on similar substances, and sometimes we need to consider the new information that is being generated in those other jurisdictions before we can finalize our assessments to ensure that we've done a complete enough study of the subject before we conclude. There are a number of different reasons that the time frame between the draft and the final assessment can sometimes take some time.
I hope that answered your question.