Hi Dooby:

No. In fact, there is no provision that I know of for one Canadian province to even accept a safety check carried out by a technician who is approved by a neighboring province to do safety checks.

The root of the problem is that vehicle registrations - which are a provincial matter here in Canada - are based on the premise that the province in which the vehicle is being registered is the 'primary base of operations' for the vehicle. Hence, the various provinces have only made provisions for safety inspections carried out by technicians approved by that particular province to be accepted. Because provinces can only regulate matters within their own domain, they only approve technicians who are based within the province that is approving them.

In theory, a technician approved by a province could travel to another location (in or out of Canada) to inspect and approve a vehicle, but for the purpose of the topic under discussion here, that would be economically impractical.

A vehicle physically located out of province could be re-registered to a new owner without having a safety check carried out, but in such a case it would be classed as 'unfit' and not eligible for a licence plate. Doing things that way would fully address the legal issues associated with ownership and who is responsible for the vehicle, but would mean that the vehicle could not be operated because it would have no licence plate.

All the provinces have provisions to issue a temporary plate (usually good for about 2 weeks) to allow an unfit vehicle to be driven to the new province of registration to have a safety check carried out, but that provision would not help in this circumstance, where the vehicle is in another country and there is no intention of bringing it back to a province to register and plate it.

The whole process and whole set of regulations makes sense and works well 99.999% of the time, but in 'corner cases' such as this one, where the vehicle is out of the country, there is no way that I know of to work around it. If one were to ask a provincial regulator for an exception, the most likely response would be "Hey, if you have no intention of operating the vehicle in this country, let alone this province, then you really should not be plating (as opposed to simply registering) the vehicle in this province."

Exceptionally, a vehicle can be registered federally (and fitted with 'Canada' plates, as opposed to provincial plates) for long-term operation outside of Canada, but this practice is restricted to vehicles operated by the Government of Canada, for example, military or diplomatic vehicles, or (very rarely) vehicles operated in areas such as Antarctica where there is no local authority for registering and plating vehicles. Occasionally, you will see a private vehicle with 'Canada' plates in another country, but that will almost always be a vehicle belonging to a person serving in the Canadian Military overseas.

Michael

What does a Canadian do when their vehicle is out of the province (or country) when re-registration is due? Surely there's a provision of some sort....? Or are Canadians unable to take long vacations--say, 6 months in Florida?

Safety checks are normally only required when there is a change of ownership of a vehicle.

Most provinces offer the option of renewing the plates for either 1 or 2 years at a time. If someone is going to be out of the country for 6 months (for example, winter in Florida), they will usually renew the plates ahead of time, before they leave, if the plate is going to expire in the near future.

I believe that Florida (by exception) has some kind of program that allows out of state 'winter residents' to put Florida plates on their vehicle for the duration of the time they expect to stay in Florida. I can't tell you much more about this, I remember a friend doing this about 40 years ago, and have not heard anything more about it since then.

Michael

Thanks for your posts. It's not often during this election season that I feel fortunate to be living in the States!

Mark

Hi Mark:

Yeah, our provincial governments kinda go overboard on safety checks for cars. But, in a way, it's good... it is extremely rare to ever see a 'beater' on the road that causes you to doubt whether or not the brakes or tires or other critical components are adequate.

We're nothing though when compared to Switzerland. There, when a car is about 5 years old, it needs to go through a 'control' that takes a skilled tech about half a day to complete, and the car has to be found to be perfect in every respect. That's why you see so many cars in places like Morocco or other African countries with CH stickers on the back... the vast majority of cars just get exported once they are 5 years old.

As for the Germans & the TUV approval required for every single modification - heck, it's easier to keep an aircraft compliant with regs than to keep a car compliant in Germany.

Michael

Province of Ontario (one province in Canada) registered motorcycles can have their ownerships changed to a different name even if the motorcycle is in Europe. It does not require a "safety certification" as that is only necessary when getting a new license plate for the motorcycle. However, this change of ownership would require a physical person present in Ontario.

As for getting new plates, this could also be done but would require a "very cooperative" mechanic in Ontario willing to give you a "safety certification" without seeing the motorcycle.....and there are some.