hey
I can't be bothered to track down the links on these, but with a little googleing you will find them easily....
In Toronto:
Active Surplus on Queen St/Beverly is the classic place, OK for resistors, hardware, leds and the like. Supremetronics is next door, or used to be.
There used to be a few places on College near Kensington Market, but I am not sure if they are there anymore.
Electrosonic used to be big in Canada, but their business has been wiped out by Digikey. They do have a good shipping deal- i just got two solenoids form them today, Fedexed from toronto for $8 shipping.
There's a place near the 401/Yonge Street called "Toronto Scientific Surplus". Really pricey, but interesting stuff/junk/motors/test gear.
Rest of Canada:
Lee's Electronics on Main in Vancouver sells stuff straight from China, and can do large orders by phone. They have an exellent retail store for small orders too.
Addison Electronics in Montreal is huge and Amazing.
HVWtech in Alberta has similar stock to Sparkfun, and ships via Canada Post.
Outside of Canada:
Digikey totally rocks though- for $8 bucks I get my stuff at my door in Vancouver less than 24 hours after I order. I am not a fan of corporate culture, but hey, Digikey is like the greatest corporation ever invented! I get about 25 shipments a year from them, and there is NEVER a problem. Their shipping is $8 flat and goes by Purolator overnight. I really have to stress that this is like the best mail order parts place ever invented.
(I like it so much that I'm thinking of starting a church of Digikey followers, where we meet on Sundays to read passages from the catalogue, and develop our spiritual beliefs in accordance with the newest releases from TI and Maxim semiconductor. Anyone who would hesitate about ordering from Digikey would be branded an "unbeliever" in our church, and we'd send out our followers to convert them with offers of sample parts and free solder paste.)
Oh and there are some other lame places you can buy from in the States, but their company names don't start with "DIGI":
Mouser, Jameco and all those other US places, but ship via FedEx overnight ONLY. With next day shipping, your brokerage is automatically included. NEVER ship via Fedex or UPS ground, as they will tack on $50+++ as a special customs brokerage/ laughing in your face fee.
Sparkfun is good too, via regular mail. Slow: takes 10-12 days to get from Oregon to Vancouver.
D