The CCSPA supports the amendments to the Hazardous Products Act in Bill C-31. These amendments will put in place a regulatory framework that will be harmonized with that of our major trading partner, the United States.
Included in Prime Minister Harper's and President Obama's 2011 joint action plan under the Regulatory Cooperation Council, the globally harmonized system, or GHS, for classification and labelling is a key initiative.
We are supportive of all the efforts to bring these new regulations to fruition, but the benefits of implementing the GHS can only be realized with a high level of alignment between the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Health Canada. Canada cannot meaningfully implement the GHS by creating unique Canadian requirements that will result in different or costly labels that impact trade.
Our sister associations, the Consumer Specialty Products Association and the American Cleaning Institute, have also publicly supported these amendments, and the United States has already begun its implementation of GHS for workplace chemicals. Adopting GHS in Canada will allow our members to use one safety data sheet and one label for products used in the North American workplace.
At this time we are proposing one amendment to Bill C-31. In proposed paragraph 14(b), under Hazardous Products Act, we're looking for an additional provision that would clearly allow for product that is imported into Canada for the purposes of relabelling to be compliant with the act. As it currently stands, product imported must be labelled prior to entry. Depending on your country of origin, this is not always practical. Allowing Canadian suppliers to import product for relabelling will allow industry to have more quality control and flexibility with respect to ensuring compliant labels in the workplace.
Mr. Chair, we appreciate this opportunity to comment on this important piece of legislation. We support this amendment and we look forward to working with the government on the subsequent regulations and guidance that are developed and harmonized with the U.S. OSHA.
Thank you.