Usually, under the tiered characteristics of the Canadian New Substances Notification Regulations (NSNR), a substance cannot be added to the Domestic Substances List until all four of the following criteria have been met:

1. the highest in the series of new substance notifications (NSN) has been submitted;
2. the government's assessment period for this last notification has expired;
3. no notifier-specific restrictions on the manufacture, importation, use, or disposal of the substance have been imposed;
4. the government has received the notifier's "Notice of Excess Quantity" (NOEQ) indicating that the notifier has, in fact, manufactured or imported the greatest quantity of substance that prompted the highest NSN. The NOEQ is filed within 30 days after the notifier has commenced importing or manufacturing the substance in the greater quantities (i.e., the "Quantity of Excess") that is allowed following government approval of the highest NSN.

Once a substance is added to the DSL, no further notification under the NSNR program is required by anyone importing or manufacturing the substance, unless the DSL entry for that substance is specifically flagged with a Significant New Activity condition (SNAc), which is a requirement to submit a Significant New Activity notification (SNAn) containing certain prescribed information if an importer or manufacturer will be importing or manufacturing the substance for a purpose or use falling outside the prescribed boundaries for that particular substance.

Under the recent "Notice of Manufacture/Import" (NOMI) amendment to the NSNR, the government will now allow companies to replace the 4th DSL eligibility criteria (i.e., the NOEQ requirement described above) with an alternate option - one which allows companies to submit a "Notice" that is not tied to the actual amount of substance manufactured or imported. The NSN information requirements (see item 1 of the DSL eligibility criteria listed above) will continue to be driven by the amount of substance manufactured or imported.

This NOMI amendment was requested by industry since there are many times when a notifier has submitted, and the government has reviewed and approved without restriction, the highest in the series of NSNs, but market demands are insufficient to trigger the need for the NOEQ-eligible quantity of substance. This NOMI amendment is a welcome addition to the NSNR program since it will facilitate more timely additions to the DSL, giving notifiers the option to abandon the onerous post-notification task of tracking annual and accumulated import/manufacture volumes until NOEQ-eligible quantities have been exceeded.

In the rare circumstance where a company files a NOMI, and the NOEQ-trigger quantity is exceeded by the notifier before the NOMI-induced DSL update is published, then the Canadian Environmental Protection Act still requires that an overlapping NOEQ be submitted within 30 days after the NOEQ-triggered quantity is manufactured/imported.

Aside from this possibility of overlap in NOMI/NOEQ reporting requirements under CEPA and the NSNR, this NOMI amendment now allows notifiers to file either an NOMI or an NOEQ, depending on their interest to fast-track, or defer, DSL listing.

The NOMI amendment can be found starting on page 1736 of the Canada Gazette at http://canadagazette.gc.ca/partII/2003/20030618/pdf/g2-13713.pdf.