OTTAWA — The federal government will ban a toxic chemical additive used to make plastic and vinyl soft and flexible in toys and other products for kids and babies.

The new regulations will reduce the amount of six different phthalates, which animal studies have shown to cause reproductive and developmental harm, that can be used in toys to such low levels they will be effectively banned.

“The fact that these chemicals are in some soft vinyl toys is not an immediate health risk, but we are concerned about the long-term effect they could have on a child when the soft vinyl is sucked or chewed, like a bib or a rubber duck,” Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said at a news conference on Tuesday. “Research shows that exposure to even low levels of certain phthalates can affect a child’s development and behaviour and that gives us reason to limit the exposure of our children to these chemicals.”

The new regulations, to be implemented in June, will bring Canadian standards up to those in the United States and the European Union, which environmental health advocates say is critical to ensuring that Canada does not become a dumping ground for products prohibited elsewhere.

“As consumer protection standards ratchet up bit by bit countries around the world, countries that are left behind with lower standards will increasingly be the recipient of old toxic products that the rest of the world has rejected and banned,” Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defence Canada, told the news conference.

The new rules will restrict the allowable concentrations of three phthalates known as DEHP, DBP and BBP to no more than 1,000 milligrams per kilogram (0.1 per cent) in the soft vinyl of all toys that children ages 14 and under would play with, as well as in products meant to be used while caring for them.

Another three phthalates known as DINP, DIDP and DNOP will also be restricted to the same level in the soft vinyl of products that are designed or are likely to end up in the mouths of children ages 4 years old and younger, such as baby rattles and bibs.

That is because the danger of those phthalates comes in the chemical leaching out of the soft vinyl and into the body, which can happen when children suck or chew on something like a teething ring for about three hours a day.

Manufacturers have voluntarily excluded DINP and DEHP from baby products such as pacifiers, teething rings, rattles and baby bottle nipples since the late 1990s, but things like bibs were not covered by the ban.

A 2007 Health Canada market survey then found that 75 per cent of toys made with soft vinyl contained high levels of phthalates, which led Health Canada to propose these regulations two years ago.

The outlawed products must be absent from store shelves by June, Aglukkaq said, and the new powers granted to Health Canada under the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act passed last year will allow the government to enforce the new rules.