When you get a notice of shipping/tracking/brokerage assessment you contact the courier and tell them you will self broker and they hold the shipment from delivery when it arrives at their warehouse. Ask them to provide their waybill/manifest document for the shipment. Seems to me with DHL that was sent out as a result of declaring self-brokerage on line. I received an E-mail saying that I owed them brokerage fees and taxes and the shipment would not be released until they were paid or self clearance was done. When you click the link they E-mail you the manifest/waybill document. Probably the same with other couriers.
You take your commercial invoice from the seller and the waybill/manifest (2 copies each if I recall) to the local customs office (probably St Catherines and Fort Erie in your case) and pay the outstanding tax/duty and they give you a paper showing that the shipment has cleared customs and authorizing the courier to release it. You will need the courier tracking number so they can look up the shipment in their computer.
The CBSA document has to be presented at the courier office or scanned & E-mailed to them and they deliver the package.
The process is described on the page Importing goods for personal use by courier, scroll down to "Process to self account" and the steps are laid out.
One thing you must have is the commercial code for the type of good imported so they can look up the duty, make sure the seller puts that on your commercial invoice. It can be looked up on line at: Tariff Finder Page, DROs look like HS Code 9031.80. That page however doesn't have a listing for China so the tariff rate has to be found elsewhere, CBSA will do this anyway.
If you want to know ahead of time, go to Customs Tariff By Chapter and scroll down to Chapter 90 and click the pdf: Customs Tariff Schedule Document and scroll down to 9031.80 and see the value (0.0) under the MFN (Most Favored Nation) column so it's a "chase of an untamed ornithoid without cause".
The applicability of the MFN rate is according to Bookairfreight.com Web Page under the heading "Determine the rate of duty applicable to your goods" since "China does not have a trade agreement with Canada, so the tariff rate applicable to your product will only be the one listed in the ‘MFN Tariff’ column."
Last little nugget, the less helpful/less personable supervisor behind the plate glass got out of shape since the DHL paperwork showed the goods Port Of Entry to be Toronto whereas they were on the shelf, waiting for the delivery order at my local DHL depot according to their on-line link. She was miffed that the goods weren't quarantined at the POE so she wasn't certain where the goods were so they could send their inspector out to look at them and make sure what was in the package was what was on all the paperwork.
It didn't look good for a while, until the other, nice helpful young lady suggested she take the paperwork upstairs to look for a work-around! HST paid I walked out with the precious rubber stamp on my document! HST cost me under $20, I think the gov't lost money on the effort.
D
