Large Personal And Corporate Fines For Importing Refrigerant

Velocity Inc., in Valleyfield, Quebec, and Stéphane Poirier, its President, were fined $37,200 after pleading guilty to illegally importing 600 cylinders of a popular refrigerant chlorodifluoromethane (HCFC-22, or R?22).

R-22 is one of many refrigerants whose import, export, use and sale in developed countries is controlled under the Montreal Protocol, the world's most successful international environmental agreement.Canada implements the Protocol through under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 and the Ozone-Depleting Substances Regulations, 1998.

R-22 may only be imported with a licence. The black market in R-22 is expanding as regulatory restrictions on it tighten, and as it becomes ever easier to order Chinese refrigerants over the Internet.