A friend of mine bought a bubble pack radio set from Wal Mart that are supposed to be both FRS and GMRS combination radios. Is there any way to tell if an FRS radio set also broadcasts or receives the GMRS channels?
I don't trust the packaging claims anymore. FRS: 50 miles?????? Yeah, OK!
Since you are in British Columbia, the FCC rules don't matter.
Canada does things a little bit different. There's no license involved and all 22 channels are included.
Power limitation is 2 watts, non-removeable antenna. Very similar to the updated U.S. FCC rules.
Usually what you'll find on the radios that were released before the FCC rewrote it's rules back in the summer is…
The 8 Primary GMRS channels are full power, narrow band FM.
The 7 GMRS Interstitial channels that are shared with FRS (The 462.xxxx channels) are usually defaulted to the GMRS settings, 2 watts.
The other 7 "FRS only" channels, (467.xxxx) are under the FRS rules, so 500milliwatts.
A good breakdown on this is located here:
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/FRS/GMRS_combined_channel_chart