It's all so sad - bad service, unfreeing regulation, poor neighbourliness and a very short memory:
The list of import duties listed on Industry Canada's website is hundreds of pages long. The section governing just shoes, a popular online purchase, and other footwear is 15 pages long. The federal goods and services tax, at 6 per cent, and provincial sales tax, in Ontario 8 per cent, and any excise tax is added on top of whatever duty is charged. Then there's the problem of clearing customs. Do you pay a private courier service, like UPS Canada, a customs brokerage fee, which can run between $20 and $70, to expedite it for your? Or do you ship through the postal service, which charges a flat $5 fee, but may take longer to deliver? Or do you avoid the fees altogether by making a trip to the customs office in Mississauga?It would be interesting to find out the expenses related to maintaining all these nutty picky fees. I can't imagine it pays for itself. And there is nothing prouder than a custom's agent required to tell you that you owe $5.47. Don't get me wrong. I pay. I pay or at least show all receipts every time. But sooner or later someone has to twig to the fact that the US dollar is going to rise again and the show will be on the other foot and also that what goes around comes around. Time for a new greater sort of universal postal union. Maybe call it free trade.
You can also take some comfort in the fact that it has been years since I have been charged that cursed $5 GST handling fee - usually charged by Canada Post when the GST being handled is 87 cents.
Comments
sean liddle - December 3, 2007 11:56 AM
Royalty Ham... hee hee
My solution is to not buy things in the US let alone online from the US if the price makes them more pricey than here. How many pairs of shoes does one need? DVDs, music, etc are cheaper on the canadian amazon and futureshop sites than in the local stores so I buy those online. Anything via ebay or that needs picking up in the US I just get a friend to pick em up and send to me as a "gift".
WCG - December 3, 2007 5:58 PM
"Large specialty" - hah, hah.
How many pairs of shoes? That's a silly question. The answer? ALL OF THEM. (Seriously, though, the most comfortable and stylish women's shoes are, for obscure reasons, rarely available in Canada. And shoes wear out...)
Actually, I try to buy something at a local retailer even if it's a few bucks extra. But sometimes it's like they go out of their way to make things inconvenient and time-consuming, so online it is.
I always wondered about "free trade" - Customs acting as censors for porographic material, for instance, and arbitrary brokerage fees ... what was the big deal about free trade if it's not free trade? The other thing that bugs me is labour mobility...
But, alas, we can't have it both ways. Either we harmonize like the EU or we suck it up and admit that we're two separate countries like any other two separate countries, and pay the price of moderate, inconvenient trade restrictions.