There's special reduced requirements conversion between FAA and TCCA for airplane pilot licenses.
Since you'd have NZ CAA/ICAO commercial, you will have to do the standard foreign to Canadian conversion. Not that much anyway. Also, your NZ ratings should carry over, for types/multi etc.
What it meant was what it stated. Some people may have had temporary validations for more than PPL in the past, although I'm told it's been downgraded over past decade, to CPL validations done in the days bygone.
Besides, if you wanna head to Canada straight away, why bother with FAA licence? There are few N-reg aircraft, but I doubt you'd get to fly those, seen in Canada. Probably some utility helicopters, some private airplane owners etc. If there are airlines on wet lease arrangements for high season, they'd probably be supplied with the crew from country abroad as well.