Yes 😡 Unfortunately this also affects Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore Post.

http://faq.usps.com/?articleId=1437076354655

http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2015/pb22424/html/info_002.htm

It's part of a bigger fight over what's called "terminal dues", the amount that the sending postal service pays the receiving postal service to cover their costs for delivering a mail item. The USPS (amongst other postal services) has long said that the Universal Postal Union rates don't even come close to what they pay to deliver an inbound item, so they take a loss on every piece of mail coming into the country.

This is what led to ePackets -- the idea being that the USPS would offer a specialized service that paid them a little more, China Post would work with them to cut down on their costs, Chinese sellers and American buyers would get faster shipping times and delivery confirmation. But the USPS hasn't actually tracked the ePacket costs and revenues closely enough to see if they're helping its financials or not. 😕

http://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2014/ms-ar-14-002.pdf

This is the latest USPS-China Post ePacket agreement -- heavily redacted. Check it out, it's fascinating stuff, at least if you're into international politics and postal geekery.

http://www.prc.gov/docs/93/93286/R2015-6%20Combined%20Notice,%20Signed.pdf

Nope! I'm just a random person in Canada who's interested in all things international, who's curious to a fault, and who just wants the world's postal services to work well for everyday people.

And honestly, I just kinda stumbled across a lot of this stuff while trying to figure out some of the basics of how the international postal system works. Like, it's easy enough to find slick promotional videos of letter carriers on their routes, or how mail sorting works, but it took a lot more work to piece together (eg) how exactly air mail is exchanged between nations. A lot that stuff doesn't seem to be clearly documented online, so I found a lot of interesting tangents while doing all of the digging that was required.

I think I've seen one or two people in the US/Canada forum mention receiving an ePacket in Canada, but I'm not 100% sure. Does eBay's shipping tool say anything about it? (I don't actually have an eBay account so can't check offhand.) http://apacshippingtool.ebay.com/cn

I wouldn't be surprised if it's priced much higher than ePacket to the US. Canada Post has taken a beating from a massive drop-off in letter mail, and they are resorting to drastic measures to cut costs and improve revenues. Most notably they are phasing out door-to-door delivery; by 2019 almost everyone who used to get door-to-door will receive mail via a neighborhood mailbox instead.

http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/assets/pdf/aboutus/5_en.pdf

There's really not, that I know of. I saw a post elsewhere claming ePacket to Canada (as well as France) was 22 RMB per package + 0.07 per gram. It barely seems any different than the normal rate for a registered parcel.

I would suggest looking into a freight consolidator -- a company who sends groups of packages as one shipment, then mails them out via Canada Post when they reach Canada -- but Canadian domestic postal rates are so high that I don't see how this could save any money. As an example, to send a 200g parcel from Vancouver to Toronto costs a minimum of something like 14 CAD (~70 RMB).