I use Scottrade (have been for 2 years as I left E-Trade afraid their mortgage holdings would blow up) and have always had to call the broker to buy/sell Canadian stocks and pay out the yin-yang. Effective today, you can buy Canadian stocks at the $7.99 internet rate on-line without talking to one of their brokers. You use the 5-letter US symbol but the trade goes through via the TSX or TSX-V. If you see 15k shares for sale on the venture at $.15, just multiply by .94 to get the USD price, put in your buy oder and bingo, you get the 15k shares. Works just like Etrade (not the foreign currency version) and I couldn't be more thrilled.
stateside