CBSA handling fee on books?

Welcome to RFD, Craiger604.
Common practice on RFD is to not dig up three year old threads and bump them with a new post that doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Luzer123 wrote: ↑The clerk at the 7-11 post office where I picked it up said she'd never seen that before.

This 100% surprises me unless they were new.
It's literally the only reason I actually go to a post office is to pay for this fee, associated taxes, and to pick up the package they didn't deliver because I had to pay for it.

NG wrote: ↑ On Ebay look for their global fulfillment program by Pitney Bowes. Again you'll get charged the taxes upon checkout so no brokerage fees.

This is my favorite way to buy things out of the US.
Reasonable shipping and prepaid taxes. Kinda slow though.

Luzer123 wrote: ↑ So I've been lucky for the past 35 years?

I don't know what you buy or how often but apparently yes.
I'm not sure how much you've purchased internationally before internet shopping was a thing, but for me it was pretty close to zero.
It's only been like the last 10-15 years that I've been buying internationally.

How would I have completely avoided paying taxes for so long?

Generally speaking if you only buy things shipped via the post office, anything under $100 generally doesn't have taxes (or the associated fee) levied. This isn't a hard and fast rule just my personal observation.
I've had things over $100 get waived too (along with the fee) so you could just be lucky.
You've also apparently never shipped anything via a courier because that's more like $40.

macnut wrote: ↑ UPS and FedEx get a lot of stick for their brokerage fees but in a way their sliding scale is fairer (in principle) than Canada Post's flat rate.

https://www.ups.com/ca/en/shipping/zone ... rance.page

The only way you're "winning" with UPS is if it's under $40 which Canada Post almost never charges for.
Everything else is more than $10 unless you're shipping via air.
Plus you get to pay other fees like the advancement fee if you don't have an account which makes even the $20-40 category more than Canada Post.

FedEx isn't much different.

DHL is the only real competitor at $16 which is also a flat rate until you hit a high value shipment or you have a ton of line items.

pootza wrote: ↑ Some say that the paperwork costs more to process than the actual proceeds they collect so that may be one reason.

Tangental, but I once paid $2 in GST in person once. $100 worth of goods on a sub 24 hour trip (sub 24 minutes actually) with half of those being non taxable groceries.
$40 item, 5% GST. The dude inside was like WTF. The agent outside sent you in to pay $2 ducking dollars?