Hi folks,

I'm going to BC on a USIT(Irish equiv of BUNAC) visa and am just wondering what is the story with driving there? I have heard that you can use your current (Irish) driver's licence for 3 months? But that 3 months start once you land in Canada?

Also do you know of any good car dealerships in and around Vancouver? Are cars cheaper in general in Canada?

Any help would be great.

Thanks all,
Conor.

As long as you are a visitor to BC you can use your foreign licence. If you become a permanent resident, you then have 6 months to take their test.

I have just done my test in BC on a work visa, and this is what I was told at ICBC ...

As a PR you have 3 months, as a visitor (including work visa) you can drive for 6 months on your licence, then you have to either leave BC and re-enter OR take your test.

How they know you have left BC, I have no idea..................... I just took it anyway, as we have been here almost 18 months.

I hear different people have been told different things, but the woman went off to phone the driving god (or maybe she was ordering a pizza)...... either way she said the above was correct!!

I think second hand cars seem to be more here, but that is just my observation............... don't know much about dealers in Vancouver.

Cheers,

Mike

That's probably because some provinces levy sales tax (PST) on used cars, so every time the car is sold the province picks up another 7% (or whatever) of the book value of the car (GST doesn't apply to second-hand goods that already have had GST levied; some provinces run a harmonized sales tax and have the same rules at GST).

PST obviously gets passed on to the customer and makes the cars pretty expensive. If the car has changed hands three times then quite a lot of sales tax has been paid.

Buy your car in Alberta (no sales tax) before going to live in BC (you can import a car from one province to another provided you are relocating to the province; importing a car when you already live in the province entails a PST charge when you re-register the car).

It's all mad, isn't it? That's PST for you. In Ontario you have to pay PST whenever you sell *anything*. So if you sell your old TV on EBay or in a yard sale or to your best friend, you have to send a cheque for 8% of the sale price to the Ontario minister of finance. Of course, no-one ever does this (just like no-one ever bothers to pay sales tax in the US on out-of-state mail order goods).

K.

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