[Scoundreller]

Not anymore. It’s fairly standard for Canadian brokerage accounts to have a US$ and CAD$ side.

You do have to 'journal' the holdings between them for my broker. This is now possible online, but used to require a phone call.

The big gotcha with this method (depending on your account and broker) is that you might need to wait for your 'buy' to settle (2 biz days I think?) before journalling, so you face some market risk).

The procedure is somewhat formalized: https://www.finiki.org/wiki/Norbert%27s_gambit

[wdb]

Yes, normally takes two days, and can see the reason why they want you to call them beside the client binding :)

[Scoundreller]

Depends on the broker. Some make it instantly possible. Also instant if you already have a cross-listed holding.

[wdb]

Think it also depends on the interbank system