I learned all of this stuff in 1985 when I was 15. Just be thankful that they don't also charge the pre-GST Manufacturers Sales Tax (it was 13.9% I think) and additional duties (usually 2%-5%) like they used to.
As for telling e-bayers to mark things as gifts, this is one reason why so many US eBayers now refuse to deal with Canadians... too many hassles for the seller when the item gets delayed at the border to be opened. I actually ask sellers to declare the full and real value of the items on my packages because I found that anything that got marked as a gift got opened and half the time something was missing (usually just something minor like a driver disk, cable, etc) or damaged even, but the real annoyance is it seemed like "gift" items get thrown into a different queue at customs because they always took longer to arrive (like a month etc.). Also, what ends up happening to the sellers is that they get blacklisted by Canada Customs and all of their packages get delayed. What I can't get over is the Canadians who give American eBayers negative feedback when they refuse to play ball on the marking things as gifts issue. No wonder they think we are all jerks.
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