I just got mine from Williams yesterday. I had it forwarded to me by a guy I know for the cost of shipping (and tossed him a couple extra $). The rod is fantastic
That being said, the guys saying the OP was NOT out of line have no idea what they're talking about. As a Canadian, it's pretty damn normal to run into online businesses that don't ship to me. It's just something Canadians have to live with - and if it's something REALLY needed, there are a number of ways to deal with it (as I have) and a bunch of businesses that cater specifically to this need.
International shipping is a hassle for many businesses to the point where I've noticed an increasing trend recently that businesses who once shipped to Canada, no longer do. It sucks, but it's reality, and part of the downside to living in Canada (though it's a tradeoff I gladly make for stuff like universal healthcare.) When people receive their package and the mailperson asks for up to 15% in taxes before handing it over, some people get mad, blame the company, and even refuse the package, sticking the vendor with the charges - and that's when somebody was smart enough to use USPS. When UPS or FedEx is used (as you suggested), and they tack on their UNPREDICTABLE "brokerage fees" that can sometimes even exceed the price of the item + shipping, even I get infuriated. Thing is, I know to just avoid using them, but most people don't, and the vendor is often the one that gets the **** end of the stick.
What the OP was ultimately asking for was special treatment - "ship to me, when you don't ship to other Canadians." They've already made the deliberate choice not to ship to Canada. The fact that they don't have a department or procedures for shipping to Canada makes it EVEN MORE of a hassle for them to ship a single package to Canada than if they normally allowed shipping to Canada, which was already a hassle enough for them to decide not to, so demanding they make an exception is absurd. Then they'd have to make an exception every time a Canadian asks (and believe me, this is NOT the first time), which would be, in practice, a policy of allowing orders from Canada, but without the streamlining and efficiency benefits they'd get by making it an ACTUAL policy (which, again, they've already determined that even then, it's simply not worthwhile for them.)
It might be hard for some Americans to understand - you guys don't have to deal with this problem nearly as much as we do - but we constantly run into businesses that refuse to ship to us. It's just something you have to deal with in Canada. If I contact the business, and they say they don't ship to Canada, that should be enough - they made a reasoned decision to not deal with me a long time ago, and fighting customer service over the issue is beyond pointless. The OP should have dropped it as soon as they said "we don't ship to Canada." They don't need to explain why they don't, because not only does it not make any difference, not only can it not possibly change anything, and not only is it not worth wasting all that time justifying their decisions (not that CS can even speak on behalf of the management like that), but the explanation is most likely the obvious one - they don't ship to Canada for the SAME REASON that the other 10 million businesses who don't ship here decided the same.