Snow Removal Contract Template (Canada)

You just landed a driveway in Barrie or a plaza lot in Mississauga, and the first system is three weeks out. A Canadian snow agreement settles the same four things a US one does — when you show up, what you clear, how you charge, and who carries the liability when someone goes down on ice — and then three more that no US template has a field for: the GST/HST line, the certificate of insurance, and the service record. Fill the fields above and the agreement builds in your browser. Nothing saved, no email wall, no e-signature.

This is the Canadian edition of the snow removal contract template. Same engine, different document.

What actually changes north of the border

The last one is deliberate. A document governed by Ontario law that quotes a per-push rate in pounds because of a browser preference is a defect, not a personalization, so this tool does not read the site-wide currency setting.

Centimetres, and why there is no number to copy

Every published Canadian winter-service standard is written in centimetres, so the trigger field here stores cm and prints inches in brackets for the operator who still buys equipment rated in them. Toggle the unit and the same physical depth is preserved — 5 cm becomes 1.97 in, not 5 in.

What the field does not do is hand you a defensible depth, because none exists. The closest public reference points are what municipalities publish for their own roads. The City of Toronto’s levels of service start ploughing expressways at 2.5 cm, arterials at 5 cm, collectors and local roads at 8 cm, and clear sidewalks, bus stops and pedestrian crossovers at 2 cm — each paired with a maximum operating time and a required outcome (bare pavement, centre bare, safe and passable). That structure is worth stealing: a depth, a clock, and a stated finished condition is exactly what a defensible scope clause looks like. The numbers are not, because a city clearing a public arterial and a contractor clearing a strip-mall lot are not doing the same job under the same duty. Set your own, for the site.

Per push and per event are two different bills

Five rows print side by side, and the two at the top are the ones winter invoice arguments turn on:

A 25 cm system that runs across two days is one event and possibly four pushes. Say which you mean in the pricing line and define the event’s boundaries, because that single ambiguity is the most common Canadian winter billing dispute. Rows you do not select print struck through, so the signed copy shows what was excluded rather than leaving it to memory.

Choosing between the structures is a risk question rather than a drafting one: per push, per inch, or seasonal works the general case, and snow contracts in Ontario and the Prairies works the Canadian half of it. To put a number on whichever row you keep, work out the number first with the Canadian pricing calculator, built on the same cm triggers and GST/HST this document uses; for the de-icing line, the de-icing salt calculator sizes the material behind it. Winning the lot in the first place is a separate job with separate rules — that is how to get snow removal contracts.

The GST/HST section forks on one question

Are you registered? Under the Excise Tax Act you are a small supplier while your worldwide taxable sales stay at or below $30,000 over the four calendar quarters immediately preceding the current one — and a small supplier charges no GST/HST at all. Choose that option and the clause says so plainly, and adds what happens if you register part-way through the term.

If you are registered, three things print: your registration number, the rate, and whether the prices in the agreement are quoted inclusive or exclusive of tax. The rate box is prefilled with Ontario’s 13% — the 5% federal rate imposed by section 165(1) of the Act, plus the 8% Ontario rate set out in Schedule VIII. Change it for the province where you supply the service; rates differ across the country, and the participating-province rates can be set by regulation rather than by that schedule, so check the CRA’s current table before you invoice outside Ontario. Nothing here multiplies anything — the rate is contract text, and this page is a document builder, not a tax calculator. The late-fee calculator does the arithmetic behind the late-fee clause, which is likewise descriptive text here.

The certificate of insurance is the document behind the document

Section 8 carries the liability language, and it carries three switches that are off by default because a driveway client will never ask for any of them:

1. Certificate of insurance — the one-page proof from your insurer, provided before the first visit of each season and again on renewal.
2. Additional insured — naming the client on your commercial general liability policy, which is what property managers and condominium boards usually want alongside the certificate.
3. Clearance certificate — workers’ compensation coverage in good standing; WSIB in Ontario, the equivalent provincial board elsewhere.

The Commercial version turns all three on at once. The CGL limit is a blank you fill, not a number this page suggests: what a client requires is set by their own contract, and quoting a market band here would be inventing one. What to actually buy, and how insurance, WSIB and the 60-day notice regime fit together for a Canadian snow operation, is covered on its own page — this section only tells you what to write down once you have it.

The indemnity itself uses Canadian drafting — indemnify and save harmless, carved out for gross negligence and wilful misconduct, with an express note that nothing in the section limits either party’s duties as an occupier under provincial law. It carries a review-with-counsel flag, and it means it: whether an indemnity in a snow contract is enforceable is a matter of provincial law, not drafting skill.

Section 9 is the one that only exists because of Ontario

The service-records clause commits the contractor to a dated log of every visit — arrival and departure time, operations performed, areas serviced, and the type and approximate quantity of any de-icing material applied — kept for a period you set, and available to the client on request. It also commits both parties to forward any incident, claim or notice of claim about snow or ice on the property to a named contact, promptly.

That is not housekeeping. Section 6.1 of Ontario’s Occupiers’ Liability Act provides that no action may be brought for damages for personal injury caused by snow or ice unless, within 60 days after the injury, written notice of the claim — including the date, time and location of the occurrence — is personally served on, or sent by registered mail to, an occupier or an independent contractor employed by the occupier to remove snow or ice on the premises during the relevant period. A contractor who receives that notice must serve or mail a copy to the occupier that employed it. The bar does not apply where the injured person died of the injury, or where a judge finds a reasonable excuse for the want or insufficiency of notice and no prejudice to the defence; and notice given to any one listed person lifts the 60-day bar generally.

Two practical consequences follow, and they are why the clause is drafted the way it is. First, a contractor can be the first party served — so an envelope arriving in February about a fall in December is a live matter, not junk mail. Second, sixty days is long enough that nobody remembers the storm: the log is how you reconstruct whether you attended, when, and what you put down. Municipal salt management plans are built on the same instinct — calibrated spreaders, and records of when and where material was spread and at what rate.

The printed note in the document says all of that, and says explicitly that it is information rather than legal advice, and that other provinces do not have this rule. It sits in a visibly separate note block for the same reason: it is not operative contract text, and it should never read as though it were.

Word, PDF, print, or plain text

Download Word (.docx) hands you the editable file to finish offline — the primary deliverable, and the reason this page is not an e-signature product. PDF renders the live preview, so fill the form first unless a blank is what you want. Print goes straight to paper with the signature block on its own page, and Copy as text drops the whole agreement into an email. None of them ask for an address.

What it is, and what it isn’t

Nothing you type is saved. There is no customer or contract database, no dispatch board or route map, no billing engine, and no e-signature of record. The trigger and response window are contract text, not a live schedule; the pricing fields are blanks you fill; the tax rate is printed, never applied; parties sign the printed copy offline.

Pairs with the service contract template for non-winter work and the recurring pricing calculator for seasonal-fee math. More documents like it live in the templates library.

This template is a starting point and is not legal advice; have it and its liability terms reviewed for your province before you sign.