Conditions of carriage

1. Who these conditions apply to

1. We carry freight for businesses. These conditions are written for a business shipper and not for a consumer, and the protections Ontario consumer legislation gives to a consumer contract are not what govern here.
2. These conditions apply to every shipment we accept, unless we have signed a separate written agreement with you that says otherwise. Where a signed agreement and this page disagree, the signed agreement governs.
3. Where these conditions and the conditions of carriage prescribed by Ontario Regulation 643/05 disagree, the prescribed conditions govern. Nothing here is meant to reduce a right you have under that regulation.

3. The information you give us

1. You are responsible for the accuracy of the piece count, weight, dimensions, commodity description, addresses, contact names and any special requirement you give us, on the quote request and on the bill of lading.
2. We may re-weigh and re-measure any shipment. If the actual weight or dimensions differ from what you told us, we correct the charges to the actual figures. See accessorial charges and fuel surcharge.
3. Where we load a trailer from a skid count you supplied and we did not verify the contents, the shipment moves on your load and count. We are recording what you handed us, not certifying what is inside the wrapping.
4. If a wrong description causes loss, damage, delay, a fine or a penalty, that cost is yours, not ours.

5. Goods we do not carry

We do not accept the following unless we have agreed to carry them in writing before pickup:

• dangerous goods that require placarding, and hazardous or regulated waste
• live animals
• goods that need controlled temperature to survive the trip
• currency, precious metals and stones, jewellery, and negotiable instruments
• documents of title and irreplaceable records
• firearms, ammunition, tobacco, cannabis and alcohol
• human remains
• household goods and personal effects
• anything that has not been accurately described to us

Dangerous goods

1. Where we have agreed in advance to carry dangerous goods, you are responsible for classifying, packaging, marking, labelling, documenting and declaring them as the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992 and its regulations require.
2. If undeclared dangerous goods are tendered to us, we may refuse them, return them, or make them safe, and the cost of doing so is yours. Any fine or penalty that results is also yours.

7. Charges and payment

1. Line haul is quoted and billed per skid. A fuel surcharge and any accessorial charges are added. What each accessorial is and when it applies is set out on accessorial charges and fuel surcharge.
2. Charges are prepaid by the shipper unless we have agreed collect or third party billing terms in writing before pickup.
3. Our invoices are payable on the terms stated on the invoice.
4. Freight charges are payable in full even if you have a claim. A claim may not be set off against an invoice and is not a reason to hold payment. A claim for loss or damage is dealt with separately, on our claims procedure page.
5. We may exercise any lien available to us at law over goods in our possession for charges you have not paid.

9. Declaring a higher value

You are not stuck with the per kilogram cap. You can raise it, and a shipper who does not know the mechanism exists cannot use it, so here it is.

1. Declare the value of the shipment on the face of the bill of lading, in writing, before we take possession of the freight, and pay the additional charge for the declaration.
2. Once you have done that, our liability is measured against the value you declared rather than against $4.41 per kilogram.
3. A declaration cannot be added afterwards. A value written on a purchase order, quoted in an email, or supplied after a loss has happened is not a declared value.
4. If you do not declare a value, the per kilogram cap applies even where the freight is worth many times more. For high value freight, consider both declaring the value and carrying your own cargo insurance.

11. Claims

Claim deadlines are short and they are strict. The full procedure, including what to send us and how a claim is valued, is on our claims procedure page. The deadlines are repeated here because they are the part people miss.

1. Damage or shortage: written notice to us within 60 days after delivery. The clock starts on the day the shipment is delivered, not on the day you unwrapped the skid and found the problem.
2. Non delivery: written notice to us within nine months from the date of shipment.
3. In every case, the final statement of claim must be filed within nine months from the date of shipment, with a copy of the paid freight bill.
4. Note any visible damage or shortage on the delivery receipt before you sign it. A clean signed delivery receipt makes a claim much harder to prove.

13. Terms used on this page

LTL

Less than truckload. Freight that does not fill a trailer, carried alongside other shippers' freight and priced per skid rather than per truck.

Shipper

The business that tenders the freight to us. Also called the consignor.

Consignee

The business the freight is being delivered to.

Bill of lading

The document issued when we take possession of the freight. It records what we received and it is the contract of carriage. We also call it the waybill.

Delivery receipt

The document signed at delivery. It records that the shipment arrived, and any note made on it about damage or shortage.

Line haul

The charge for moving the freight from origin to destination, before the fuel surcharge and before any accessorial charge.

Accessorial charge

A charge for work beyond a straight dock to dock movement, such as waiting time or an inside delivery.

Declared value

A value written on the face of the bill of lading before pickup, for which an additional charge is paid, which replaces the per kilogram cap as the measure of our liability.