Fellers, Baron lives in Ontario and yes you need a cat converter legally. Its very noticable when you don't have one installed. Not sure of the fines or if they are as high as $10G, but the cops wil stop you. :?

They don't even need to hear the exhaust (which isn't much louder after a cat is removed as long as the muffler(*) remain); they'll know by the smell that you're spewing un-"converted" exhaust. It smells like a bad lawnmower...

I do want to fix it soon. I might just go to an exact replacement, I'm not sure of the advantages of any of these high flow units, and if they will last as long as the original (11 years).

Plus I keep hearing that changing your exhaust can take away low end torque, so not so sure I want to mess with that. Anyone else have first-hand experience in this"?

i replaced mine w/ a high flow cat and i definatly didn't loose any torque. you should be fine because your sc'd and will have more back pressure to begin with. the high flow cats are usually cheaper than stock replacements too.