The SKS recoil in my opinion is mild and fairly light. it can be made even less with a decent AK-style muzzle brake. Its probably about 2x or a .223 rifle. I've never fired a .25-06 rifle before so I don't know about the recoil in relation to that. However, the SKS was my second rifle, after my first rifle, a bolt action .22LR its not too big a step up in terms of recoil from a .22LR rifle. The differences you'll notice is considerable muzzle climb (without a compensator), and a very loud rifle report.
Sorry, I can't help you with the legal part.
additional details part:
are you looking to reload (hand load) in this caliber? in hunting ammunition it is possibly wise to hand load your own ammo. But for target/plinking use its much more practical just to buy the cheapest Wolf ammo instead. 7.62x39mm is one of those "borderline"calibers regarding reloading. Its not expensive enough to make reloading financially more practical, but if you do plan to reload it definitely won't cost too much either. any savings you get from reloading your ammo is marginal at best.
Most 7.62x39mm ammo is split into two groups: steel case berdan primed, which is very cheap and unreloadable, single-use only and much more expensive commercial made ammo with brass cases, boxer primed. Brass cases can be reloaded up to about 15 times at best. 7.62x39mm is only practical to reload if you plan on hand loading the expensive stuff-target, precision, home/self defense, and hunting ammo. You can easily buy the bullets online or in a store. they're .311 in caliber. .308 caliber bullets works also.
The cheap ammo is in reloadable, generally $220 per 1000 rd case bought online or at a gun show. Most likely its under a Russian brand, like Wolf, Barnaul, Golden Tiger, Brown Bear. They're all made in one Russian ammo plant so actually they're the same stuff. Commercial ammo is around $18 per 20 rounds. (money in USD, don't know about your monies).
the 7.62x39mm caliber is an intermediate caliber, in the USA its legal to hunt medium game like whitetail deer with it. there isn't enough power or penetration to take animals bigger than a deer. Its a fun gun for the range and plinking, but not so much useful in hunting. for deer at most 150 yards range.
a similar caliber but much more powerful would be a Mosin Nagant rifle in7.62x54mmR. This time is a full rifle cartridge with much more recoil, significant muzzle blast and power. The Mosin Rifle is a bolt action rifle, ideal for hunting or target use, target to over 500 meters (the rifle sights are in meters) and deer-like animals to over 300 yards. I do not know exactly how big an animal you can hunt with a Mosin rifle, possibly up to a small bear? Ammo is cheaper, $50 for 300 rounds and the gun is cheaper too, $100 at most. I'm pretty sure its legal in Canada, as its not a semiautomatic and Canada has those "anti-assault rifle" laws.