I vaguely remember a thread (but I don't know where) which talked about sending stuff over to furnish a house which would initially be a second/holiday home. I thinks that they said it can be done, but maybe the person who asked the question will respond. You might want to try searching.

From memory, that is a tick box on the B4 forms, isn't it? "Seasonal resident" (which probably covers temp workers/visitors/students or anyone else who would be expected to remove their stuff when they leave Canada).

We just flew back to Calgary last week having lived here for a 1 & 1/2 years so far on firstly a Bunac and now a foriegn worker visa. We were back to organise the packing of our container and when we flew in ticked the box to say goods weren't with us. The initial customs guy at the airport was cheery and mentioned the B4 form that we needed so sent us to pick up our luggage and we'd be dealt with in the "back-room!"

When we got to the back-room, we were asked if we'd filled out the B4 form after landing first as you should do this within 5 days of immigrating which is when you are granted the duty exemption and can import your stuff. Of course we hadn't as when we'd first arrived we had no idea that we would be staying for the longer haul so hadn't planned on bringing our goods.

While trying to argue this point and see if we could fill out the form now, the customs person then realised that we hadn't actually "immigrated" and were still just temp residents on our foriegn worker permit so couldn't classify for any exemption, eek!

A few minutes of stressing that we were going to have to pay duty later and she returned having checked with her superior that we could import our belongings provided we could remove them again when our visa expires. We didn't even need to fill in a form!

Anyway, i've been meaning to update the shipping wiki a bit since I started it with this process so should get on it soon, now that I've dealt with customs and insurance some what.