Two Canadian federal agencies, Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, have invited interested parties to submit comments on the content of the agencies’ “Revised Risk Management Scope for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS),” which contains proposals for regulating PFAS, including HFOs and HCFOs, as a class.

Comments can be submitted via mail to Environment and Climate Change Canada, Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3; telephone: 1-800-567-1999 (in Canada) or 819-938-3232; fax: 819-938-5212; or email: substances@ec.gc.ca. The deadline for submissions is September 11.

Information sought includes:

• availability of alternatives to PFAS, or lack thereof, in products and applications in which they are currently used;
• socio-economic impacts of replacing PFAS, including costs and feasibility of elimination or replacement; and,
• types, quantities, and concentrations of PFAS in products manufactured in, imported into, and sold in Canada.

The Revised Risk Management Scope report was released in July, along with the “Updated Draft State of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Report.” which proposes treating PFAS as a class of chemicals that “may cause harm to human health and the environment.”

Notably, both reports use a definition for PFAS established by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): fluorinated substances that contain at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom. This definition, widely endorsed by PFAS scientists, includes f-gases and trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), an atmospheric degradation product of some f-gases. The EU follows this definition, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not, thereby excluding f-gases and TFA from PFAS regulations. The EPA has also declined to address PFAS as a class despite calls to do so.

The Canadian government plans to eventually publish a “Final State of PFAS Report” and an accompanying  “Risk Management Approach” document. If the former report confirms that the class of PFAS is toxic, the latter report would outline and seek input on proposed risk management instruments.  “At that time and at subsequent stages, there would be further opportunity for consultation,” said the Revised Risk Management report.

Meanwhile, as part of the Revised Risk Management Scope report, the Government of Canada is proposing activities to reduce environmental and human exposure to PFAS through a phased approach, which includes:

• as a first step, a regulation under the 1999 Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) to restrict PFAS not currently regulated in firefighting foams;
• additional instruments under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to prohibit PFAS in other uses or sectors; and
• possible voluntary risk-management actions to achieve early results to reduce releases of the class of PFAS.

Other ongoing actions on PFAS will continue, such as development of drinking water guidelines and environmental quality guidelines, management of contaminated sites and the continued administration of existing risk management actions.

Prioritization for prohibition may be based on factors such as socio-economic considerations, the availability of feasible alternatives, and the potential for human and environmental exposure. (PFAS meeting the definition of fluoropolymers are not addressed within the Revised Risk Management Scope report and are planned for consideration in a separate assessment.)

The Revised Risk Management Scope report addresses HFOs and HCFOs as part of the PFAS class. The report notes that other f-gases, such CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs, are already controlled in Canada under the Ozone-Depleting Substances and Halocarbon Alternatives Regulations, (ODSHAR). Should risk management actions on HFOs and/or HCFOs be required, the report adds, “they would be developed in alignment with, and complementary to, existing regulations with controls on PFAS, such as [ODSHAR] and the Prohibition of Certain Toxic Substances Regulations, 2012.”

The Updated Draft State of PFAS Report, which calls TFA a PFAS on the basis of the OECD definition, has extensive information on the proliferation of TFA in the environment and its potential health impacts. “Given the potential for TFA to cause adverse effects and its ubiquitous presence in the environment and organisms alongside other PFAS, the potential for TFA to contribute to cumulative effects of PFAS in organisms is of concern,” said the report.

The Updated Draft State of PFAS Report also points out that HFOs and HCFOs (particularly HFO-1234yf) are predicted to become “an increasingly important source of TFA in the environment” as the transition away from other f-gases continues. “As such, HFOs and HCFOs that are PFAS according to the definition of the class of PFAS remain within the scope of this report.”

Voluntary risk management actions are being considered to achieve early results to reduce releases of PFAS, as a complement to the proposed regulatory instruments, the Revised Risk Management report noted. Voluntary initiatives under consideration include:

• exploring opportunities to increase disclosure of information (such as labelling) regarding chemicals of concern, that would enable consumers and importers to identify products containing PFAS;
• engaging with interested sectors on options for voluntarily phasing out of PFAS; and
• working with North American trading partners on alternatives assessment and informed substitution of PFAS.

Reducing regrettable substitution

CEPA provides the authority for the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health to conduct assessments to determine if substances are toxic to the environment and/or harmful to human health, and if so, to manage the associated risks. In April 2021, the Government of Canada signaled its intent to move forward with activities to address the class of PFAS based on scientific evidence indicating that the PFAS used to replace prohibited PFAS, such as perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCAs), may be associated with environmental or human health effects.

“Addressing PFAS as a class will help to protect the environment and human health by, among other things, reducing the chance of regrettable substitution (replacing one PFAS with another less-well characterized equally problematic PFAS), supporting improved research and monitoring programs, and reducing future environmental and human exposure to PFAS,” said the Revised Risk Management Scope report.

Well-studied PFAS meet the “persistence criteria” as set out in the Persistence and Bioaccumulation Regulations of CEPA, said the Revised Risk Management Scope report. “Based on available information and structural similarities, it is expected that other substances within the class of PFAS are also highly persistent or transform to persistent PFAS.”

Canada’s previous PFAS regulations include the Prohibition of Certain Toxic Substances Regulations, 2012, which prohibit the manufacture, use, sale, and import of PFOS, PFOA, and LC-PFCAs, along with their salts and precursors, with a limited number of exemptions. On May 14, 2022, the Government of Canada published draft regulations to remove or phase-out most of those exemptions. The publication of the final regulations is expected to take place in fall 2024 and would come into force six months later.

A February 2024 report called “Canada’s PFAS Problem” by the Canadian NGO Environmental Defence argues that chemical industry lobbyists have come out “in record numbers” to resist federal government ambition to address PFAS as a class of chemicals. For example, the report said, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) believes that taking a class-based approach to PFAS is a departure from Canada’s Chemicals Management Plan (CMP) process. The CIAC appears to “want to return to the substance-by-substance approach that led to the current situation where a handful of PFAS were restricted only to be replaced with thousands of lookalike chemicals.” Environmental Defence urges the Canadian government “to take urgent action and tackle this issue in a more comprehensive way, as PFAS researchers have been promoting for years.”

Responding to a request for comment, a CIAC spokesperson said, “Appropriately, the government has identified that not all PFAS substances have the same risk profile – essentially rejecting the notion that there is one giant class. We think the remaining classes can be further subdivided, allowing the government to prioritize substances that may have an unacceptable level of exposure. “

“Given the potential for TFA to cause adverse effects and its ubiquitous presence in the environment and organisms alongside other PFAS, the potential for TFA to contribute to cumulative effects of PFAS in organisms is of concern.”

Canadian Government’s Updated Draft State of PFAS Report