Legal & Regulatory
Can you still cancel that doorstep sale?
A salesperson at your door, or a contract signed away from the seller's own place of business, gets special protection: an unconditional right to cancel within a short window, no reason required — usually extended much further if the seller broke disclosure, licensing or delivery rules.
British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec are independently confirmed, straight from each province's own statute, at the identical 10 days standard / 1 year extended pattern. Ontario and the remaining provinces weren't independently confirmed this session — shown honestly below, not guessed.
Inputs
Cooling-off period
Choose a province and press Look up.
Every jurisdiction
| Jurisdiction | Standard period | Extended period | Confirmed |
|---|
Sources, read 27 September 2026: British Columbia's Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act (bclaws.gov.bc.ca), Alberta's Consumer Protection Act (Alberta King's Printer), and Quebec's Consumer Protection Act (legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca) were each read directly. Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002 lives on e-Laws, which (like CanLII) requires JavaScript and could not be fetched as static text this session — the same access gap already flagged elsewhere on this site for Ontario's Trustee Act. New Brunswick's old stand-alone Direct Sellers Act was confirmed repealed in 2011; where its replacement provision lives wasn't tracked down this session. No day-count is asserted for any jurisdiction not read directly.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a "direct sales" or "door-to-door" contract?
A contract solicited or signed somewhere other than the seller's own permanent place of business — classically a salesperson at your door, but also includes many home-show, trade-show and in-home-demonstration sales. It's a different category from a contract you initiate yourself by visiting a store.
Do I need a reason to cancel within the standard period?
No. In every confirmed jurisdiction, the standard-period cancellation right is unconditional — Alberta's statute literally titles it an "absolute cancellation right." You don't have to justify it or prove anything went wrong.
Why do BC, Alberta and Quebec all land on exactly 10 days?
It's a genuine coincidence worth knowing rather than a single shared rule — each is its own separate provincial statute, independently confirmed this session, that happens to set the same 10-day standard window and a 1-year extended window for materially similar breaches (missing licence/permit, missing required contract information, non-delivery within 30 days).
Why doesn't this cover all 13 jurisdictions?
Every figure on this page was checked against the actual statute text before being shown. Ontario's and CanLII's sites require JavaScript and couldn't be read as static text this session; a few other provinces' current direct-sales provisions weren't tracked down in time. Rather than repeat a commonly-cited but unverified number, those jurisdictions are shown honestly as not yet confirmed.
Not legal advice
Cooling-off rights have exceptions and procedural requirements (how notice must be given, what happens to goods already delivered, exempt categories of goods/services) not modelled here. Confirm against the Act itself, your written contract, or with a lawyer or your provincial consumer protection office before relying on a specific deadline.