All good advice by soulstep, but safety really doesn't mean a thing, I've seen safetied cars that are shitboxes and non-safetied cars that are mint. If the seller offers to get safety for extra cost it's usually a good sign that the car's fine mechanically but the seller just doesn't want to deal with the paperwork and inspections. Emissions is much more important since generally it's more difficult and expensive to make it pass if it fails, even with the new test procedure. But of course your results will vary, I bought mine with no safety or emissions, all it needed was 2 rubber brake lines for safety and it passed emissions well under the limits.

 

I've never had to take a car for emissions safety. At least in Manitoba, all we need is a safety inspection in order to license a vehicle (unless it has been salvaged, in which it needs a body integrity too).

You are right however, sometimes you can find cars that someone doesn't want to safety that have virtually nothing that needs to be done. On the other hand, I've had cars that look like they won't need much done, and when I took it to the shop I found out that there was much more than I expected.