Child Car Seat Regulations in Canada

After my last post, I was surprised by a friend who informed me that my purchase of a car seat in the United States was actually illegal. It seemed smart to purchase a car seat across the border since the price difference is substantial. It had never even occurred to me that I should do a little more reading before heading cross border to purchase a car seat since they carry the same brands, and even almost identical models.

After receiving this information, I began to do some research. It was not long before I found the information that I needed. Here's a link to the most relevant notice regarding this issue:

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/roadsafety/safedrivers-childsafety-notices-2007c09-menu-353.htm

I found the repercussions for purchasing a car seat out of Canada quite shocking. If you do not feel like reading the notice, this includes:

•Confiscation of the seat at the border or after it has entered Canada;
•Fines and/or demerit point penalties;
•Reduced or voided insurance coverage for injury or death; and
•Possible criminal charges and/or civil litigation.

I think the most troubling part of all, is thinking of all the oblivious people (like I once was) that have absolutely no idea that there is an issue with obtaining a car seat out of Canada. There is already so much to learn when becoming a parent that you are constantly overwhelmed...how are you ever able to be completely informed?

So the inevitable next question after finding out this information was what to do next? Thankfully, we had purchased the car seat at a Babies R Us, so we had a couple of options. We could either head back over the border and get a refund, or return it to a Babies R Us in Vancouver and get a store credit. We decided on the latter since we did not want to waste the money on gas to return the car seat.
The most ironic part of all of this, is that we then used the store credit towards basically the identical car seat, but the Canadian version which has the crucial National Safety Mark sticker. For this all-important sticker, we had to fork out basically another hundred dollars. Also note that both car seats are made in the United States!

Britax Boulevard bought in the United States:


Britax Boulevard bought in Canada:


I guess I should be thankful that I was informed about this before it was too late for us to return the car seat from Portland.