Importing Dangerous Goods by Air into Canada: Transport Canada & CBSA Requirements

Canada's Transportation of Dangerous Goods (TDG) framework covers every transport mode, but for air shipments specifically, it incorporates the ICAO Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air by reference — Part 12 of the TDG Regulations — rather than running a separate domestic air rulebook. In practice, that means the operative packing instructions, quantity limits, and classification tables a shipper actually files against are the same ones in the IATA DGR, not a Canada-specific set of numbers. Transport Canada's own published guidance explicitly does not restate PI numbers, Watt-hour thresholds, or state-of-charge percentages for lithium batteries — it defers those to the ICAO Technical Instructions on purpose.

Where Canada does add something distinct: the TDG shipping document for an air shipment must be completed per Chapter 4 (Documentation) of Part 5 (Shipper's Responsibilities) of the ICAO Technical Instructions — the same content requirements covered on our Shipper's Declaration guide — but Canadian air shipments additionally require red diagonal hatching on the margins of the shipping document or declaration. That's a formatting requirement layered on top of the standard IATA shipper's declaration, not a substitute for it.

The single hardest, most unambiguous Canadian rule that applies specifically to lithium batteries: it is forbidden to transport by aircraft any batteries that are damaged, defective, recalled, or recycled. This is an absolute prohibition stated directly by Transport Canada, not a paperwork requirement that can be satisfied with the right declaration — a damaged or recalled battery doesn't fly, full stop, regardless of how it's packaged or declared.