Transport Canada (TC) has recently share proposed amendments to the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations (TDGR) by email with stakeholders. These draft amendments cover what TC calls the “International Harmonization Update”, as well as a complete revision of Part 12, Air.

Please find an overview of the International Harmonization Updates (IHU) in the TC Consultation Document – IHU (Part 12) – Section by Section Summary Review. The complete proposals are found in the following two documents:

Transport Canada has advised these proposed amendments reflect comments received during previous consultations; please note that a lot of the suggestions in the IHU proposed amendment stem from COSTHA comments. COSTHA discussed the IHU amendment with TC last Thursday (July 9, 2020), during which TC announced that every items in that amendment that does not encounter any issues could go straight to Part 2 of the Canada Gazette (i.e. similar to a Final Rule). Remember that most of those are meant to harmonize the TDGR with either the UN Recommendations or 49 CFR. The biggest change would be to introduce dynamic referencing to the UN Model Regulations for Part 2, Classification.

We are thus currently welcoming/requesting comments from COSTHA members on any of the issues presented in the TC consultation documents (and yes, we have noted the absence of the orientation arrows and will bring this up with TC).