Don Foreman wrote in message . ..
They do seem to, but it's not limited to US suppliers. I just
bought some stuff from Future Electronics (based in Canada).
No duty charges because the goods were shipped from a US location, but
shipping charge was $9 for stuff that could have been shipped USPS
for 60 cents in a small padded envelope.

I think many suppliers defer to UPS to deal with Canadian customs, and
UPS makes a tidy profit for doing so. The Canadian gov't does not
like money flowing south, makes it as inconvenient as possible. I
say this from personal experience as a consultant. I was detained
for over an hour in Vancouver until I was able to make it clear that I
was supporting a Canadian division of a US Corp and was being paid by
the US corp in US funds from US accounts. I still had to assert
several times that I'd be doing "no useful work"; I'd attend
engineering meetings but I'd not make anything useful that they'd
rather a Canadian should be making.

If your government creates impediments to trade that cause you
inconvenience and discourages US vendors, perhaps you should direct
your rants at them. Perhaps they're convinced that your
inconvenience serves the greater overall economic benefit of Canada
by keeping Canadian money in Canada as much as possible.

Gee, if you change 'Canada' to 'USA' you'll have an exact description
of what your INS people do all the time. Since I don't see many
complaints about that, I consider that you're just getting what your
Govt has sown.

I used to work for and be paid by a foreign subsidiary of a US
corporation. Had that sort of hassle whenever I flew into the USA.
Shrug. Get used to it. Since the USA decided to tighten up all sorts
of rules & regs in a totally useless attempt to stop something, other
countries on the recieving end are doing the same to US citizens in
turn. You fingerprint nationals on entry, we do the same in return. So
it goes. I don't bother going to the States any more, too much hassle
and my country is on the 'favourite few' list. God help the rest.....

PDW