Risk assessment summaries for living organisms

Background

Risk assessments of living organisms are conducted by Environment and Climate Change Canada and Health Canada. These assessments determine whether a substance is or may become harmful to human health or the environment as set out in section 64 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA). When potential risks are identified, CEPA empowers the Minister of Environment to impose control measures.

To promote transparency of the New Substances program, Environment and Climate Change Canada and Health Canada publish summaries of environmental and human health risk assessment reports for living organisms. These summaries provide an overview of information examined during the assessment period, as well as the conclusions and regulatory decisions that were made. All experimental and calculated values are listed as ranges to protect confidential business information. The key elements found in the summaries include:

• the substance identity
• its use
• its hazard
• its exposure
• its environmental fate
• the assessment of its ecological risk
• the assessment of its human health risk
• the regulatory decisions

Risk assessment summaries are published on a regular basis for notifications representing a wide spectrum of organism types, methods of manufacture, uses and risk levels, including but not limited to notifications where control measures are applied.

For more information on the risk assessment summaries or to obtain a full copy of a summarized risk assessment report, please contact us.

For more information on how the New Substances program conducts risk assessment summaries of new living organisms, please consult the following resources:

Microbial risk assessment framework (MRAF) under the New Substances Notification Regulations (Organisms) of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

Risk assessment of living organisms subject to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 and the New Substances Notification Regulations (Organisms)

Substance identification in summaries

Where the substance identity of a living organism is not considered to be confidential, it is identified by its explicit biological name in the summary.

Where a substance’s explicit biological name is considered to be confidential business information, CEPA allows for masked names to be published in their place. Masked names are regulated under the Masked Name Regulations, which permit the masking of one or more distinctive elements of the explicit name. The Department of the Environment and Climate Change assigns each confidential substance identity numbers, also referred to as a confidential accession number by the New Substances program.

Accessing risk assessment summaries for living organisms

All risk assessment summaries for new living organisms that have been published since 2010 can be obtained through the following steps: go to Substances Search, select “New Substances Risk Assessment Summaries” in the drop-down menu, click "Export to Excel". In the Excel file, filter the results for "Organism" in the "Additional Information" column. The links to the organisms’ risk assessment summaries can be found in the “Recent Publication(s)” column.

The risk assessment summaries for new living organisms can also be found below: