FRANADA - Friends in Canada

My last couple of relatively expensive cross-border items shipped this way have been >$200 and incurred no duty. Same with hand-carrying across the border: the last two items in the $200-250 range (one pre-pandemic, one yesterday) were allowed through by the CBSA agents without duty. I suspect though that up around that level it might be a lottery, depending on how busy or grumpy the particular CP worker or border agent might be at the time; but currently when estimating foreign-purchase costs I'm assuming anything below ~$CAD250 will be duty-free if imported by these methods.

Yep, but you pay more so it's only worth it for larger shipments. For example, Digikey ships to Canada from their MN warehouse using Fedex International Priority at a flat rate of $CAD20 (or free if the order is over $100) and all paperwork and costs are taken care of at the sender end.

 

I just received two shipments each declared at $20 USD ($25-26 CAD), one via DHL and the other via UPS.

DHL charged $19.42 CAD and UPS $11.87 CAD.

 

Hello
to all in Canada, do any of you ever come down to the US or Michigan? I am trying to buy a set of Consonance Solo speakers MKii . There in BC and working our shipping has been difficult. I know its crazy and thought I would ask anyway
best,
Josh

 

I feel your pain. I once paid $40 in fees/duties/taxes on an item that I only paid $30 for... and it was broken.

 

I only travel to the US to pick up the occasional package at a parcel service, which gives me a US address to send things to for vendors that don't ship to Canada. I'm sure the demand is considerably less going the other direction, but I would be surprised if there are not at least some companies here that would give you a Canadian shipping address so that you could take a trip just over the border and take it back to the US yourself.

You might be best to ask US friends if they know of such a thing. I know for sure there are forwarding services that will handle it all (Ship within Canada and forward to the US) for you but I don't know if they offer pickup options and can't speak to their actual value.

Cheers

 

Thanks for the info, much appreciated

 

Thought my franadas may be interested in this: https://www.newswire.ca/news-releas...tform-soon-available-in-canada-894629707.html. Qobuz to be available in Canada soon!

 

Neat!

Truly going to depend on pricing for me. Currently paying CA$10 taxes in for Tidal, and it's been really good to me; the music discovery is really very good. Qobuz would have to really wow me to convince me to pay any more.

 

Hey @Beefy @Kernel Kurtz @Velomane and any other local guys, y'all coming out to the meet this Sunday?

 

Where is it at? I can only give a definite maybe at this point.

 

At this point it will either be at Rifi's place (near polo) or mine (near U of M)

 

Rifi can't host anymore, so it'll be at my place @1pm this Sunday. People can message me for my address.

 

Nope sorry, too many family and work commitments!

 

Happy maple syrup day ya hosers!

 

Thanks and a happy poutine to you too.

Were you trying to blow shit up at the university again?

 

That was the chemistry building, not engineering

But funny coincidence, we had a very similar shut down of my labs that I was working in a number of years ago. Someone found an old jar of picric acid that had dried out (it's quite volatile in solid form) and they had to call the bomb squad to dispose of it. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts it was something similar this time around.

 

Nine times out of ten it's picric acid, or it's little buddy dinitrophenol.

 

I'm not familiar with that one, but the nitro + phenol tells me all I need to know

Though working with the potentially explosive stuff never worried me as much as the hydrofluoric acid they kept in the cabinet.

 

Back in grad student days in NZ in the 80s one of the tech staff dropped a full flagon of HF. Nobody could recall ever having seen him move so fast.

Luckily the fume hood was going, so it was just a matter of keeping distant until the guys in the hazmat suits arrived.

 

I grew up in a gold mining town in Northern Ontario (near Timmins), and worked at the mine on weekends during the school year and full time during the summer. Working in the mill, I mixed cyanide when I was sixteen years old....cyanide "eggs" in 45 gallon drums. Can't remember getting any kind of safety training, or masks or any of that stuff. Wonder how often that happens anymore