Nope, Jesse's more like me. He has either two taxes, the GST at 7% and the PST at either 7 or 8 % or just something called the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) at 15% but I think that's more of an Eastern Canada thing. Dale's the only one (ALberta) that pays only 7%.
Basically Canada is tax mad, scraping every damn cent it can in every possible way. It's really quite maddening to get hit with additional fees that way.
Like Dale, I tend to ask anyone I trade with and most ebayers to mark a lower value, usually below $50 depending on the size of the package which can get it through. Very occasionally someone says no on a moral basis and that's fine by me, it's their conscience they have to live with, not me.
Retailers like HLJ, BBTS, etc. don't want any trouble, so they all mark it merchandise. An occasional retailer will cut a break and one I used to deal with did it all the time, but he became rather unreliable.
I did luck out with BBTS on the Series 2 set with Indy as it was $185 and that's how it was marked, but it looked like $18.5 so customs let that one go through unscathed.
Customs also charges a flat $5 fee for each package it stops
