Canada tests a garbage bag harder than almost any other market — not in a laboratory, but in a parking lot in Winnipeg in February. Film that handles Toronto office waste all summer can shatter like a cracker at minus twenty. That cold-weather reality shapes the resin blend more than any tariff table, and it is the first thing Canadian distributors ask us about. This checklist walks through compliance and quality the way our Canadian buyers use it.
Entry and paperwork: CBSA under CARM
Polyethylene bags classify under HS 3923.21, and the CBSA assesses duty on the transaction value with 5% GST on top at import. Since CARM — the CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management system — became the only way to account for imports, your broker files through it and your own CARM client portal shows the duty and GST ledger directly. Registration happens before the first shipment, not at the border. We supply commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading and a resin/mill certificate with every container; nothing in that set is unusual, but incomplete packing lists are still the top cause of clearance delays we see on Canadian entries. Vancouver and Montreal handle most of our volume, with Halifax a solid third; Toronto usually clears through Montreal or Vancouver and moves by rail.
Labelling: bilingual if it hits a shelf
Bags sold to facilities management in master cases face no language requirement, but the moment a retail pack reaches a store shelf, the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act requires bilingual English and French identity and quantity declarations. If you repackage domestically you control this; if you want retail-ready printed packs from our line, send the French copy with the artwork and we will print both languages. Provincial extended producer responsibility programs — Ontario's Blue Box transition is the best known — sit on the brand owner or first importer, so budget the EPR fee registration if you sell into retail channels.
Quality checklist before the container loads
Run this list on any pre-shipment sample, from us or anyone: micron measured at five points across the web (cold film gauges thin); tensile and elongation values on the test report, not just "heavy duty" on the box; seal-burst — inflate a finished bag and check the bottom seal holds before the side walls give; drop test a loaded case from a metre. For cold performance, ask for the elongation figure at low temperature on the resin data sheet — a high-elongation LLDPE blend recovers from a poke instead of tearing, which is exactly what a frozen bin liner needs. Colour matters more than Canadians admit: clear liners for events and airports, black for standard streams, and the colour-coded streams used by hospitals and facilities — our guide to colour-coded trash bags covers the standard scheme.
Full specifications and sizes sit on our heavy duty garbage bags product page, and if your accounts include healthcare facilities, see our biohazard bag line for the regulated side of waste.
Frequently Asked Questions
What duty and tax will I pay at the border?
Duty on HS 3923.21 per the current CBSA tariff for the specific line, plus 5% GST on the duty-paid value. Your broker confirms the exact rate at entry — rates on this heading are low single digits.
Do the bags need to be food-contact certified?
Only if the use case involves direct food contact. Cafeteria and kitchen liners typically are not direct-contact, but we can run FDA 21 CFR 177.1520 compliant resins when your customers require the documentation.
Which film works in Prairie winters?
A high-elongation LLDPE-dominant blend, gauged one step heavier than the summer equivalent. We ship Canadian winter spec to prairie accounts as standard and can share the resin data sheet before you commit.
What is a realistic lead time to Montreal?
Production 7-10 days, ocean 26-34 days via the Suez routing to Montreal, clearance 2-4 days. Winter scheduling on the St Lawrence adds buffer — order before mid-October for pre-Christmas stock.
