Posted by
Ed Lilly on Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:15:15 PM
The folks at
Maclean's can't seem to make up their minds whether life in the Great White North is better in every conceivable way than here in the U.S.:
Once a month, Henry Tenby jumps in his car — just after the morning
rush hour and with a tank close to empty — and makes a 45-minute drive
from his Vancouver home to Blaine, Wash. After zipping across the
border using his recently acquired Nexus pass, he fills up with cheaper
American gas and stops off at a packaging store, Hagens of Blaine,
where the aviation buff and Internet entrepreneur picks up the computer
parts and memorabilia he routinely buys online from the U.S. and has
shipped there under his name. The cross-border shopping ritual saves
him anywhere from $50 to hundreds of dollars a trip — at the very
least, the equivalent of a nice dinner out, he says. This month, he
plans to buy a piece of new computer hardware in the U.S. for about
$200. Buying the part in Canada would cost $320, he estimates. As for
Canadian retailers charging more than their American counterparts: "I
think they're just being greedy and gouging Canadians," he says. "I
don't like it."