There's no other place to get Leopolds in Canada as far as I know, and it's even worse than the $35 shipping since you'll also be paying about another $30 in duties to get it across the border. I learned this the hard way and it added more than 50% to the base cost of the keyboard.
People here don't like the DAS because of the shiny finish the case has, which shows and dust and fingerprints more readily, but there's really nothing wrong with it, at least not the new version. The old one apparently had some problems that were worked out.
Rosewill mechanical keyboards are available on... can't remember if it was NCIX or newegg.ca... and are pretty cheap. They are considered to be pretty good /but/ a lot of people seem to get dead on arrival keyboards that they have to RMA for a replacement, at least according to the reviews. Some people also complain about how the stabilizers in the bigger keys squeak because they are not lubed.
If you are going to get a DAS, you should get it from
http://directcanada.com/ as they have it for about $30 cheaper than elsewhere. Most people don't seem to know about this place but it's very good. I've bought a trackball, two mice and a heat sink from them.
If you are willing to pay a bit more, WASDkeyboards.com is considered to be really good. A lot of people say it is even better than Filco. I've bought a keyboard from them and it costs less in shipping than a keyboard from elitekeyboards and I think they declare it a different way or use a different carrier because I don't think I had to pay duties on it, but I can't recall exactly...
You mentioned that you are looking for brown switches, but if you would be interested in blue switches, I have a blue switch tenkeyless Leopold and blue switch DAS that I'm looking to sell and I'm in Quebec so shipping should be much cheaper and you certainly won't have to pay duties.
