Provincial regulation provides relevant language on the obligated businesses that must join an accredited industry-managed program (i.e. Product Care Association’s program) or develop their own program. Generally speaking, this obligation falls on the brand owner or “first supplier” of products in the province of Québec. “First supplier” means an enterprise having a domicile or establishment in Québec (i.e. a physical location) that acquires a covered product outside Québec in order to market it in Québec. The first supplier is the enterprise located in Quebec that is the most upstream in the distribution chain in province. Thus, a first supplier can be an importer, broker, wholesaler, distributor, retailer or any other stakeholder in Québec that first intervenes in a product’s distribution chain.
In order to help you determine if you are an obligated enterprise, you can access the following “decision trees”:
Page 162 of Regulation Guidelines (English)
The following is an excerpt from the regulation.
Every enterprise that markets a new product referred to in this Regulation under a brand, a name or a distinguishing guise owned or used by the enterprise must recover and reclaim, or cause to be recovered and reclaimed, by means of a recovery and reclamation program developed in accordance with section 5, any product of the same type as the product marketed by the enterprise and that is deposited at one of its drop-off centres or for which the enterprise offers, if applicable, a collection service.
If a product is marketed under more than one brand, name or distinguishing guise, the obligation provided for in the first paragraph falls on the enterprise responsible for the product’s design.
Despite the first and second paragraphs, that obligation falls on the enterprise that acts as the first supplier of that product in Québec, whether or not the enterprise is the importer, in the following cases:
- The enterprise referred to in the first or second paragraph has no domicile or establishment in Québec;
- The enterprise that markets the product acquires the product outside Québec, regardless of whether the enterprise owning or using the brand, name or distinguishing guise has a domicile or establishment in Québec; or
- A product does not bear any brand, name or distinguishing guise.
Further detailed information on these requirements and definitions, including information on remote orders, brand owners located in Québec etc., can be found in the English Regulatory Guide.
