The shipping service has steered your purchase across the border. They charge a fee for this.
The lowest is probably the Global Shipping Program (Pitney Bowes) which charges about $5 USD.
Canada Post charges $9.95CDN.
Other couriers (UPS FedEx) charge $25CDN up.
All imported purchases valued over $20CDN (~$15USD) are subject to duty.
Some items have 0% duty. Examples are used goods and items manufactured in a country with which we have a Free Trade agreement like USA, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and Israel.
In addition, if the import is valued over $20CDN, the importer pays Canadian sales taxes (GST, HST, PST) whether there was duty charged or not.
Confusing the issue, CBSA and Canada Post made the sensible decision not to assess for duty small and low value imports, because it costs the taxpayer more to collect import fees than would be collected.
Any other questions?
