You don't really have to get any bacteria ... it is naturally occuring int he air, etc, and you will eventually grow the bacteria yourself using just the ammonia.
You can buy the bacteria - trade name Biospira - but that is only avialable in the US, and they prob can't ship it during winter <although I've heard of someone getting a supply to Calgary in the fall>. But at this time of year, if you try to ship live culture from the US, you'll just end up with expensive ice-cubes!
Bio-spira is supposed to cycle your tank "instantly" and you don't need to go through the fishless method. You can add the fish within 24 hrs of adding bio-spira.
Another option is using bacteria from an established tank. I've using the seeding method 3 times now. I just keep a bag of gravel in my wet/dry filter so it is colonized with bacteria. Then when I need a
QT or other tank setup, I just put that gravel in the new tank & transfer the bacteria. With enough bacteria transfer, I get only a mini-cycle (trace
NH3, and a 2-3 day
NO2 spike of 0.3), and my tank is cycled in under a week.
So if you have a friend with a healthy tank, you can "borrow" some of the bacteria - just squeeze some of the gunk out of an active filter <or if he is going to change filter anyway, the whole filter> and put that in your filter. You should speed up the cycling process significantly.
BTW I don't think plants will speed up cycling - the plants will use up some of the
NH3/
NO2 & prob slow things down.