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Currently, the Legislation states that if a vehicle is 15 or more years of age, it is admissible to Canada, regardless of CMVSS or Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (Which are generally based on the United States' DOT system[which unfortunately, has a track record for being one of the most corrupt and ineffective systems in the developed world])

There is a drive, backed by CADA (Canadian Automobile Dealers Association) to ban RHD from being sold, and moreover driven on Canadian roads. Take into account that CADA is a private interest group, and have never expressed such intense (if any) interest in safety standards. Oddly enough, they don't seem to care about the safety of used LHD vehicles, which may have never had a safety inspection since they rolled off the showroom floor.

A: Although this idea/info is widespread, it is incorrect. When a vehicle arrives in Canada, it must first undergo an Out of Province inspection. It is necessary to pass this inspection, or else the vehicle will not be eligible for insurance.

In order to pass inspection, not only do imported vehicles have to be in good, safe operating condition, but they also are required to have the following in order to pass inspection: Reflex reflectors and running lights, visible from the side on the front and rear of the vehicle, LHD headlamps installed; which must bear DOT or E-Coded (LHD European) markings, as well as forward facing Daytime Running Lights(usually headlamps), which must come on automatically when the vehicle's ignition is engaged. In addition to these, the vehicle needs to have AS1 marked windows, neutral safety switches for manual transmission vehicles, and have CMVSS equivalent or higher standard seatbelts.

Q: I've heard that after 50,000km, the Japanese are not allowed to keep their vehicles, is this true?

A: No, it's not true; The Japanese have a stringent inspection system that a car must pass through called a "Shaken". For personal vehicles, a new car has a shaken that lasts 3 years, and following that, a shaken must be conducted every 2 years. This is also why the vehicles that come from Japan tend to be in good running order.

So, you may or may not have heard about a study conducted by ICBC more than three years ago. The study claimed that imports were 40% more likely to be involved in a Claim situation. Nobody seemed to question the validity of it, after all, ICBC is a government entity. Due to the trusting nature of most Canadians, nobody has asked where they got their numbers from. Well, that is, except for us. In late 2007, IVOAC submitted a FOIP request(utilizing the freedom of information act) to ICBC for the raw data used in the study. What we got back was very concerning. The vehicles were lumped into broad groups based on type and make and this was used to compare against left hand groups of the same type. Ostensibly comparing apples to oranges, and creating a less than accurate study, which was later admitted to be inconclusive by ICBC, albeit quietly, so as not to negatively effect their credibility.

What did they do for something like the Mitsubishi Delica for which no left hand drive equivalent was ever sold here ?

How could they determine what was a left hand drive and what was right hand drive? They only recently (late 2008) started collecting that information at registration. The report came out a year and a half before. What did they do? Can you imagine if Statistics Canada went through all the phone books in Canada and counted the number of people with a last name of "O'Neil" and used that number to determine the exact number of Irish immigrants living in Canada.

Below is a link to a number of documents compiled by IVOAC to back up the truth behind the smear campaign ICBC called a study.
http://ivoac.ca/docs

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