Hi Studata Girl,
thanks for the interesting information about shipping.
Do you know which Canadian ports do accept 1.1g? I understood (from an ERD presentation at the recent Symposium) that Canada was in relatively good shape for importing 1.1g as we have more than one major port that accepts 1.1g (due mainly to the mining industry). In the US, there are only two ports that accept 1.1g - New Orleans and Longport (California - I think that's the name). I think the main problem with 1.1g is the road transportation.
As for salutes being packaged so that there's less in a box, my understanding is that the extra packaging moves them from a 1.1g classification to a 1.3g so that shipping is not an issue. Of course, the effective cost of shipping goes up because there are many fewer per box.
In terms of non-homologated product for shows at La Ronde, whether a product is homologated in Canada or not doesn't change its default UN shipping classification. So any shell 200mm or over will be classified as 1.1g no matter if it is approved in Canada or not. I was down on the ramps at La Ronde last year and noticed much of IPON's shipping containers were marked as 1.1g ... but since they were using 6" cylindrical salutes with 1500g of composition, it's no surprise!
For shipping to Canada it would make a lot of sense if all the display operators collaborated. I'm sure there's a lot of overhead because separate companies import product from the same Spanish and Italian manufacturers. I'm sure it would be much more cost effective if it could all be consolidated into a single importation channel. Perhaps there's space in the market for a pure importation company - they wouldn't do displays but would coordinate the importation of all the products for all the display operators.
Finally, the information in your post would be of interest to the Canadian Fireworks Association. Feel free to join the CFA/ACP yahoo group - you don't have to be a member of the CFA to join the discussion group (we also have several people from ERD who are discussion group members). Your thoughts and insight would be valuable to everyone. You can find out how to subscribe by going to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cfa-acp
Best regards,
Paul.