9. The SC’s final evaluation stage

9.1 Meeting to review files

The Standards Committee Secretariat concerned shall draft a final report containing information from the expert report, various notices, particularly from administrations and bodies concerned, comments received during the public consultation and responses received from the applicant organization throughout the process.

The report shall be forwarded to committee members no later than two days before the meeting of the Standards Committee concerned, which proceeds to do the final assessment of the file.

After its discussion, it may issue one of the following notices:

The file has been rejected for specific reasons. If the applicant wishes, it may submit a new file for public consultation.
The file cannot be approved in its current state. Responses to the SC’s comments as well as a new revised specification manual proposal are expected.
When the file must be reviewed again in a meeting, the Committee may, based on the comments presented, call the applicant for a hearing. The applicant may also request a hearing with the Committee members, appointed by the Chair.
The file may be approved on condition that the applicant provides satisfactory responses to various comments, validated beforehand by the accredited certification body or bodies, as well as any additional information that may be requested by the Committee after the Committee Secretariat and Chair review these responses.
Once the file has been approved and the responses provide the anticipated clarifications, the Committee issues a positive recommendation regarding the file. It appears in the decision records in the minutes of the SC meeting.

The SC Chair shall send all the notices to the applicant, along with a copy sent to the certification body or bodies that certify the product.

For all files that were not rejected but did not receive a positive recommendation in the SC’s final evaluation, the organization shall send five copies of the responses to the comments in the form of:

a summary table of the responses to the questions;
a specification manual in which the changes to the previous version are clearly shown; in addition, an electronic copy (with track changes) of the specification manual must be sent; and
if applicable, five copies of additional documents requested by the committee must also be sent.

Once the SC receives the new information, it shall review the file again in a meeting. All files that do not receive a positive recommendation after this supplemental evaluation are rejected.

If the applicant does not respond within three months following the most recent review date on which comments were made, the Board shall send a negative recommendation to the Minister.

9.2 Appeals of negative recommendations by the Committee for initial recognition applications

After they receive a negative recommendation from the SC concerned, applicant(s) have one month to file a petition by sending the Committee’s Secretariat a registered letter requesting a review of the decision. They may specifically request a hearing. If the SC maintains its position after this appeal, it shall inform the applicant(s) and certification body or bodies concerned of its decision by registered mail with proof of delivery.

An appeal to the Board may then be filed within 15 consecutive days. It shall be sent by registered mail with proof of delivery to the Secretariat, along with the payment of appeal fees.

If the Board upholds the SC’s decision, the content of the decision shall be sent by registered mail with proof of delivery to the applicant(s) and certification body or bodies concerned. If not, the Board may request that the SC reconsider the file at the next meeting on the basis of guidelines it provides to the SC.

A notice concerning the review shall be sent to the Board, which makes the final decision.

9.3 Sending a final decision to the Board

When the SC makes a final decision, it shall send the content in the form of a notice to the Board in order to have it at its disposal. Should the decision be favourable, it shall be immediately sent to the Board. Should the decision be unfavourable, the SC shall ensure that the deadline for appeals has expired before sending its notice to the Board.

When the SC sends an unfavourable decision to the Board, the file may only be reviewed again if a new recognition application is submitted.