Issue #255 Tarred With The Same Brush
Written by Robert Smith   
Tuesday, 06 October 2009
Of the 11 motorcycles presently residing in my garage (in widely varying states of riding readiness), five were imported under the 15-year Exclusion Rule. What’s that? To use Transport Canada’s words, it’s the “age exclusion limit for the prescribed classes of vehicles that can be imported without needing to comply with Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.” It means you can import any vehicle 15 years old or more from anywhere in the world without it having to comply with the CMVSS requirements. Such vehicles aren’t required to undergo inspection prior to being registered, nor do they have to be on the Registrar of Imported Vehicles list.
If none of this is making sense so far, let me see if I can simplify. If you try to import a vehicle less than 15 years old from any country other than the US, you can’t. Period. The vehicle is liable for seizure at the border and will probably be destroyed. Likewise any under-15 vehicle from the States that isn’t on the list of permissible vehicles maintained by the Registrar of Imported Vehicles (www.riv.ca). Essentially, the list comprises vehicles (motorcycles in our case) that have been type approved in Canada. So you can import a 2003 Aprilia Futura but not an ’03 Aprilia Falco, in spite of their being mechanically identical. MV Agusta? None have ever been type approved in Canada, so if you bring your $125,000 F4 Claudio Castiglioni Edition to the border with the intention of registering it in Canada, it will go in the landfill.
As well, RIV-approved, under-15 vehicles need to be inspected to ensure compliance with Transport Canada regulations. And they need a letter from the dealer stating that all necessary recalls and upgrades have been completed. This is easier said than done, as many manufacturers and distributors have discreetly forbidden dealers to provide such documentation.
The saving grace in all this is the 15-year rule. If the vehicle was registered more than 15 years ago, it’s open season for importing. You just need clearance from US Customs that the bike isn’t stolen (if it’s a US-registered bike) and you pay your GST at the border.

ALL WELL AND GOOD, THEN ..?
Possibly not. You may have noticed a number of unusual cars on the road recently. Mitsubishi Delicas, Nissan Skylines and Silvias, Subaru Sambars, Daihatsu Moves. None of these vehicles was ever sold in Canada, but they’re eligible for import under the 15-year rule. Almost all are right-hand drive, because they’re “grey market” imports from Japan.
Particularly popular among young and affluent testosterone-charged males are high-performance tuner cars, like the 1989-94 Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R turbo, a street-legal, 300-hp, 180-mph production racer. Not surprisingly, a disproportionate number of these have been involved in crashes, causing consternation at the Insurance Corporation of BC, and prompting La Belle Province to introduce a moratorium on registering imported RHD cars. Just as it did with sportbikes, the public insurer, SAAQ concluded that it was the vehicles causing the crashes, not the operators.
The upshot is that, based on a report prepared by ICBC, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (essentially provincial vehicle and driving regulators) has recommended to Transport Canada that it review the 15-year exclusion rule. If the exclusion was raised to, say, 25 years, three of the bikes now in my garage would have been inadmissible, and my Swiss-registered 1991 BMW Paris-Dakar would be scrap metal.
The problem is that it isn’t just RHD tuner cars that would be affected if the 15-year exclusion is increased, because there’s no way motorcycles wouldn’t be included. If, for example, a 25-year limit was approved, the mint-condition 1988 Laverda SFC1000  or Guzzi Le Mans you just found in Florida would have to stay there.
Given that this issue has got to Transport Canada level, it’s pretty likely we can see our freedom to import mid-life motorcycles considerably more restricted in the future. In the UK, vehicles more than 25 years old used to be exempt from “vehicle excise duty” (road tax); but in 1997, the cutoff date was frozen and now only applies for vehicles constructed before January 1, 1973. Could our present 15-year rolling exclusion turn into a firm cutoff date?
So why doesn’t ICBC and SAAQ simply up insurance rates for (the mostly younger) drivers of RHD tuner cars? Part of the problem is that they’re prohibited by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms from discriminating on the basis of age—even though younger drivers are demonstrably more likely to crash. Instead, they want a federal mandate that will impact anyone wanting to import a vehicle—including motorcycle enthusiasts.
Is there anything you can do to tell Transport Canada you don’t want the 15-year exclusion expanded? Yes there is. Send an email to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or to dowload a feedback form visit:
http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/corp-serv-gen/5/forms-formulaires/feedback.aspx
(Though when I tried it, the page wouldn’t load.)
Lots of fun bikes sold in the US and Europe in the 1980s and ‘90s never made it to Canadian dealers. It would be a real shame if we were prevented from importing them too.
Comments (0)add comment

Write comment
You must be logged in to a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.

busy
 
< Prev   Next >
[ Back ]
Copyright Canadian Biker Magazine 2009 - Website Development Baratta Design
Google Analytics Alternative