Customs Hassle in Montreal Canada and all of Quebec Province

[knittinggirl]

Huge problem w/ shipping luggage up to Quebec Province.

 

 

We used Luggage Forward to ship our luggage (as usual) up to the hotel, so it would be waiting in our hotel when we arrived. And now it's hung up in customs, and they say we have to arrive in the country before they will release it. This is a new customs issue, because I was able to ship luggage up to Quebec w/o any issues a few years ago.

 

 

They don't think it will clear customs fast enough if they wait until after we arrive to move it forward.

[martincath]

Having gone through the enormous fun of visiting a bonded warehouse to clear our stuff through customs when we immigrated to Canada, I can offer one potentially-useful tidbit: find out EXACTLY where it is. They will have details of which warehouse it's waiting for clearance in - and it will hopefully be in the local airport, which means it will actually be very easy to get it to the port in time.

 

If they've stopped it at the first Canadian airport (or border crossing if it came by land) things could be much stickier, but personal imports do not have to stop as soon as they hit a border - our stuff came by sea and was offloaded in Montreal then shipped by train to Toronto and finally transferred by truck to one of the bonded warehouses at Pearson airport where I was notified to go collect it. Unless they've flagged it as suspicious in some way it should have continued moving - even if you have e.g. packed your furs or lots of liquor and need to fill out some forms/pay duty before they'll release it.

 

Oh, and whatever the deal is it's not Quebec to blame - Canada operates all borders/customs/immigration stuff federally. Nothing big has changed in recent years I can think of, except further expansion of pre-clearance going to the US which doesn't impact stuff coming the other way - my best guess is your stuff has been flagged through either a truly-random inspection or because something you have declared needs extra paperwork. I am of course assuming that you did send a detailed list of the contents when shipping and did not ship anything illegal to bring into Canada!!!

 

Best of luck with getting your stuff there on time - check with your travel insurance whether luggage forwarding delays are covered, and even if they I'd get confirmation in writing that you can buy things if the bags do not arrive in time. Since you have been warned about the problem in enough time to take sensible measures (i.e. packing and bringing extra clothes) insurers may try and use that to weasel out of paying compensation...

[knittinggirl]

We won't have a car in Montreal. So, we won't be able to go and pick up our luggage.

 

 

We also had this hassle when we traveled to Alberta a few years ago. But we learned this before we shipped it, so we just shipped it to British Columbia.

 

Anyway, Luggage Forward, the luggage shipping company is trying to fix this. He seems pretty certain that he can get it to the ship.

 

 

He said that four provinces are affected now, and this annoying change happened very recently.

[cefm]

All of the rules are federal government the only differences between provinces are around how much liquor you can import (ie Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec only allow 9.5L where New Brunswick allows 45L) (disclaimer: this is import limit not duty-free limit)

 

 

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[knittinggirl]

I'm still waiting for customs to clear.

 

 

I DIDN'T PACK LIQUOR.

 

 

I specifically asked Luggage Forward about custom's delayed before I committed to ship the luggage, and they promised this wouldn't happen, but it did.

 

 

 

This is the second time that I've been delayed w/ customs in two different countries, and sent no items listed on their forbidden list.