Canada Consults Over Proposed Amendments to the Toys Regulations

SafeGuardSToys and Juvenile ProductsJuly 05, 2023

SG 85/23

Canada has initiated a consultation for its proposed revisions to the Toys Regulations. Comments will be accepted until September 21, 2023.

On June 23, 2023, Canada issued its Notice of intent to amend the Toys Regulations (the Notice), a piece of legislation where many of the chemical and toxicity requirements have remained unchanged since it was introduced in 1970 under Part I of Schedule I to the Hazardous Products Act (HPA) and subsequently transferred under the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA) and renamed as the Toys Regulations (SOR/2011-17).

The Notice seeks to revise seven items associated with chemical and toxicity requirements in the Toys Regulations. Highlights of these items in the Notice are summarized in Table 1.

Notice of Intent to Amend the Toys Regulations
Health Canada, June 23, 2023

Item	Requirement	Highlights of Proposed Changes
1	Toxic substances	To include additional sources of toxicity data in Schedule 2, including human experience data and data from OECD Test Guidelines on top of established animal testing To evaluate the option of replacing Schedule 2 with references to good scientific practices and hazard categories in the Globally Harmonized System (GHS)
2	Corrosive, irritant or sensitizing substances	To use a weight of evidence approach using new approach methods (NAM) from OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals over animal testing
3	Boric acid and its salts	The following options are under consideration: Establishing requirements in the regulations consistent with the current enforcement policy To adopt the requirements from EN 71-3 for the migration of boron from all toys To adopt the requirements from ISO 8124-3:2020/Amd 1:2023 for the migration of boron from 1) slime and 2) modeling clays and putties Note Canada’s current enforcement policy for boric acid or its salts in all toys is no more than 0.91% (9,100 ppm)
4	Migration of certain elements	The following options are under consideration: To adopt ISO 8124-3 and ASTM F963 migration limits for antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium and selenium for all substrates To adopt EN 71-3 migration limits for 19 elements for all substrates or To maintain the limit for total mercury and adopting the ISO 8124-3 and ASTM F963 migration limits for substrates other than stickers, films or similar materials that can be removed, or surface coatings To maintain the limit for total mercury and adopting the EN 71-3 migration limits for substrates other than stickers, films or similar materials that can be removed, or surface coatings To modify the limit for total mercury to the migration limit for all substrates under ISO 8124-3 and ASTM F963, or To modify the limit for total mercury to the migration limit for all substrates under EN 71-3
5	Finger paints	The following options are under consideration: To adopt ISO 8124-7 for: Certain hazardous classifications under the GHS Colorants, preservatives, impurities, binding agents, extenders, humectants, surfactants, n-nitrosamines, containers and the migration of (eight) elements In addition to compliance with ISO 8124-7, to adopt a limit for total mercury
6	Liquids, pastes, putties, gels, powders and items of avian feather origin	To add requirements by incorporation of ASTM F963 by ambulatory reference
7	Chemical toys (sets) other than experimental sets	To align with ISO 8124-11 through an ambulatory incorporation by reference

Table 1

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