1. Introduction

This is the first report on the progress being made in implementing the 76 recommendations resulting from the multistakeholder consultations that took place (1999-2001) on amending the New Substances Notification Regulations (NSNR) and the New Substances (NS) Program.

The Final Report of the Multistakeholder Consultations and the Environment Canada/Health Canada Response to the Consultation Recommendations continue to serve as guidance to Environment Canada and Health Canada during the implementation of the consultation recommendations. These two documents are available on the New Substances Website.

The purpose of the progress report is to keep stakeholders and other interested parties informed of the status of the changes that are being made, based on the recommendations, to the NSNR and the NSN Program over the next several years. The report is organized along the same five-theme structure that was used during the consultation deliberations and in the Environment Canada/Health Canada Response document:

• Theme 1: Improving the Environmental and Health Assessments for New Substances;
• Theme 2: The Regulatory Framework;
• Theme 3: Transparency of the NSN Regulatory Process;
• Theme 4: Improving Responsiveness of the NSN Regulations and NSN Program in the Global Context; and
• Theme 5: Service Delivery.

The first part of this report provides a general overview of progress to date in implementing the consultation recommendations. More detailed information is found in Appendix 1, where progress is presented in tabular format, on a recommendation-by-recommendation basis.