I'd like to talk about who the CCPA is, our Responsible Care program, and why we support the proposed amendments.
CCPA represents over 50 chemical and resin manufacturing companies in Canada, as well as nine Responsible Care partners, with $26 billion in revenues. Three-quarters of our production is shipped to the United States or offshore markets; therefore we need to rely upon safe and efficient transportation to get to those markets.
Since 1985, CCPA has made it a condition of membership that all members sign on to what is called Responsible Care. Responsible Care is our commitment to sustain ability for improved health, safety, environmental performance, and social responsibility. There's an ethic with six codes that apply against the total life cycle of chemical management. All of our companies and partners are verified against these codes by external parties.
Of particular interest is the transportation code of practice, where we ask all of our members to select the safest mode--road, rail, air, or marine--routes, and carriers; to have immediate emergency response capability; to ensure the security of their shipments; and to inform and train communities along those transportation corridors.
What's our legacy with the transportation of dangerous goods? In 1970 the CCPA established a national emergency telephone system that eventually led to the creation of CANUTEC, established by Transport Canada in 1982. In 1983, our second iteration of this program established an on-scene response program across Canada. This supported the then-developing ERAP concept under the TDG Act and regulations. In fact, CCPA's TEAP program was the first one ERP-approved in 1990. We are now going through our third iteration, based upon what we know and see in the future for transportation of dangerous goods regulations and other commodities.
All of our members belong to this. We require that we have 24-hour, seven-day-a-week technical advisers to attend incident scenes. We now cover not only dangerous goods but non-dangerous goods and environmentally sensitive materials. We assess and register all of our responders. We track on-scene performance, and we have cohorts in this endeavour. The Canadian Association of Chemical Distributors and the Railway Association of Canada are fully on board with us.
Why do we support Bill C-9? A few years back, the collective industry formally asked Transport Canada to have made-in-Canada TDG security legislation, as otherwise we were forced to follow the U.S.A. requirements. There was a letter sent from the TDG advisory council to the Minister of Transport at the time, requesting action in this regard. I've left copies of this letter with the clerk.
Transport Canada wanted to act, and we had no objection to using the ERAPs for security purposes, but unfortunately for industry we found out that security was not covered in the then TDG Act, and amendments would be required. We understood that and fully participated in all consultations. When the act was finally released for proposed amendments last May, we were relieved to see it, but then we were disappointed when Parliament prorogued for the election.
It's now back, and we fully support it because it provides Canadian-based security legislation and clarifies that the TDG Act and regulations are a federal government mandate. It provides the requested protection we need when we're directed to respond to a CBRN or TDG security-type incident, because currently our insurance policies do not cover acts of terrorism, war, or anything else. We would be left on our own, which is a pretty scary thought for some of our people, when we want to do the good and right thing.
We will be looking at this in the future with other trade associations.
I thank you for your time.