Wait, what? I am in Canada and I have a couple of 5pound CO2 canister for home brewing and a modded sodastream to accept any CO2 canister. Where did you find this information?

I even get it filled up at the corner store lol.

I don't know if it's true today, but back when I had a SodaStream (~5 years ago), a "purchased" SodaStream CO2 canister came with a printed copy of this: https://www.sodastream.ca/en/assets/ulc.jpg

Yeah I don’t think that has anything to do with the government. That’s just them trying to prevent you/scare you away from refilling the containers yourself.

Paintball guns run on CO2. You don’t need a special permit to own a paintball gun. You can pick up a paintball tank on eBay and run down to Canadian Tire or any paintball field and they’ll happily fill it up for you. Or at least they used to — it’s been a while for me.

That happens worldwide, they are just trying to contractually drm the canister business.