About pest control product registrant inspections

On this page

• What is a pesticide registrant?
• Overview of a registrant inspection
• During registrant inspections
• After registrant inspections
  • Inspection report
  • Enforcement actions
• Health Canada's Pesticide Compliance Program (PCP)
• For more information

What is a pesticide registrant?

A pesticide registrant is a legal entity in whose name one or many pest control products, commonly known as pesticides, are registered in Canada under the Pest Control Products Act (the Act). Registrants are responsible for the initial and continued registration and labelling of their products, regardless of whether they manufacture them or not.

For each product, the legal entity has the obligation to hold a registration certificate that bears a registration number (Reg. No. 00000 P.C.P. Act or, Registration No. 00000 Pest Control Products Act) of the pesticide and sets out conditions of registration specified by Health Canada.

Overview of a registrant inspection

Pesticide registrants are subject to regulatory oversight through compliance verifications (inspections) by Health Canada.

Registrants are selected for inspections on the basis of a number of criteria, including:

• previous inspection date
• compliance history
• the manufacturing or distribution of pesticides containing active ingredients that have recently undergone re-evaluations

During registrant inspections

Registrants inspections verify that the following activities involving pesticides are carried out in accordance with the act and its regulations:

• importing
• manufacturing
• storing
• advertising
• packaging
• labelling
• distributing
• sales reporting
• incident reporting

When conducting inspections, Health Canada inspectors may:

• Verify that products are registered and that the conditions of registration are respected.
• Examine documents, such as:
  • product labels to verify that they comply with:
    • Health Canada's labelling requirements stated in the regulations
    • Health Canada approved labels in both English and French
    • relevant re-evaluation decisions
  • sales reports
  • incident reports.
• Verify additional elements such as:
  • sources of active ingredients
  • formulating sites
  • product packaging
  • advertising, including the registrant's website.
• Take samples.

Some inspections verify all of the above, while others are focussed on specific regulatory requirements identified from a risk-based perspective. This includes, for instance, inspections limited to requirements included in recent re-evaluation decisions issued by Health Canada.

After registrant inspections

Inspection report

After an inspection, Health Canada inspectors produce a report summarizing:

• the observations
• the overall inspection compliance rating of the inspection with the act and its regulations:
  • A compliant rating indicates that no non-compliance was established.
  • A compliant with observations rating could indicate:
    • technical deficiencies or
    • observations that pose a low risk to human health and the environment.
  • A non-compliant rating indicates that non-compliance were found and leads to enforcement measures.

Inspection reports are posted on Health Canada's Pest Control Product Registrant Inspections Database webpage for 5 years.

Enforcement actions

Enforcement actions are taken in accordance with Health Canada's Compliance and enforcement policy for pesticides and may escalate in situations of continued or repeat non-compliance.

They include:

• warning letters
• compliance orders
• Administrative Monetary Penalties –up to $10,000 per violation under the Agriculture and Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties (AMPs) Act. These are posted on Health Canada's Enforcement Bulletin webpage, for 5 years
• cancellations of product registrations
• prosecutions

The pesticide registrant is responsible for implementing corrective actions that are required by Health Canada to address the non-compliance observed during the inspection. Additional inspections may be conducted to ensure that the registrant has taken these corrective actions.

Health Canada's Pesticide Compliance Program (PCP)

Health Canada's Pesticide Compliance Program (PCP) is responsible for promoting, monitoring and enforcing compliance with the Pest Control Products Act (PCPA) and its Regulations. The primary objective of this legislation is to prevent unacceptable risks to human health and the environment from the use of pesticides.