Cosmetics Alliance attended these meetings, along with your PCMA and FCM Committee Chairs and Vice-Chairs on December 9th and 11th.
The intent of these sessions was for Health Canada to demonstrate how they intend to meet the actions, plans and priorities under the September 8th, Red Tape Reduction Report. This report outlines the actions the NNHPD is committing to take, including introducing:
- a simple registration process for certain NHPs and NPDs
- flexible risk-based vigilance requirements for all NPDs
- flexible risk-based monitoring for NHPs
- modern, flexible regulations for NPDs with simplified requirements to expedite product approvals.
and
- Making labelling requirements more flexible for NHPs and
- Reducing authorization requirements in areas where oversight is more appropriate after the product is authorized
We have attached the two decks from these sessions here:
En – Industry Assoc & APA – NPD modernization
Fr – Association de l’industrie & OPAP – Modernisation des MSO
NHP Red Tape Reduction and Simple Registration Session – Dec 11 2025
Session sur la réduction du fardeau et l’enregistrement simplifé pour les PSN – 11 décembre 2025
As you can see, the low-risk CUSMA-defined products which we represent (which Canadian Government has acknowledged in Parliament) have not been carved-out from the proposal.
Therefore:
- The underlying issue with products such as toothpastes, sunscreens, etc. remains governed by three distinct regulatory frameworks, meaning regulatory shopping persists
- The need for two separate meetings on what should have been the same high-level topics does not reflect efficiency in itself
- The long-promised, but undelivered modernization initiative for low-risk cosmetic and cosmetic-like drugs and NHPs has not been addressed
- Interestingly, it was signalled the proposed amendments to the Food and Drug Regulations will include “application” and “non-application” authorities, mechanism for pre-market authorization and post-market notification respectively. The latter currently having a mechanism under the CHPSD for cosmetics.
