In light of the unprecedented demand and urgent need for products that can help fight COVID-19, including cleaning products, as an interim policy, Health Canada is facilitating access to products that may not fully meet current regulatory requirements. In Canada, certain cleaning products used in the workplace are regulated under the Hazardous Products Act (HPA). These products are typically subject to various regulatory requirements, such as bilingual labelling. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Canada has implemented an interim policy to facilitate access to cleaning products used, handled or stored in workplaces coming from the United States into Canada that are not fully compliant with existing regulatory requirements (for example, unilingual labelling, information or pictograms not exactly as outlined in the regulations). However, the interim policy does not change the enforcement priority for all other regulatory requirements under the applicable regulations . The interim policy will only apply during the pandemic. After the pandemic, Health Canada will again enforce all hazard information and labelling requirements for these products. In addition to providing Health Canada with the necessary information, importers of these products must also provide labelling text on their website in both official languages that can be viewed by workers and employers in Canada. The HPA sets the foundation for hazard communications in an occupational setting, where workers may be repeatedly exposed to, or exposed to large quantities of, chemicals, putting them at greater risk of injury or illness than the general population. For this reason, the HPA is hazard-based, in that it seeks to characterize the inherent dangers associated with hazardous substances. The Department will continue to update Canadians on any further efforts to increase supplies of cleaning products used in the workplace that can help combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
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