Thank you very much for the question. First of all, our government has invested $300 million in this chemicals management plan, and it indeed makes Canada a world leader. Certainly many other countries have contacted us and expressed an interest in emulating our chemicals management plan, and are actually signing agreements with Canada to take advantage of our leadership in this issue so that they can dovetail in to all the work that we have already done in this area.
There were 23,000 substances considered—legacy substances, chemicals that had already been added to our marketplace before more stringent guidelines and rules had been put into place. Of those, 19,000 were found to cause no concern whatsoever. About 4,300 required further action. We've reversed the onus. We've said to industry—and this is the critical part—that they have to show us that these chemicals are safe to use in their manufacturing process or to use around the house or to use in somebody's garden. If they can't show us that something is safe, they have to phase it out and have an action plan to make sure that Canadians are safe in this regard.
We have already proposed prohibition of some 60 substances, and we're rolling out, every quarter, new substances that come on the list to be reviewed, and in some cases phased out. So I'm quite proud of this program. I think it will help have a huge impact on the toxicity levels in our bloodstreams, and Canadians can be rightly proud that we're taking a world leadership role.