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The way I understand it is that US brokers can't have out of country customers.
Years ago when online discount brokers first appeared I opened accounts with a couple US Brokers. Both were eventually closed unless I had a US address . Apparently the same treatment was given to US customer in Canada.
I now use Interactive Brokers Canada and understand that customers in the US can trade on any exchange they want.
"The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days" RW Hubbard
It is a tax thing for the most part. In Canada, the brokers handle the taxes for American stocks bought by Canadians on american exchanges...that and there is a tax agreement between the two countries. We pay taxes on the dividends and capital gains on USA stocks purchased on American exchanges and we don't get double taxed...the little taxes we do pay come I suppose over and above those taxes that you pay in the USA...but we pay them up-front when we complete the trading cycle.
Also...there is little interest in the bulk of Canadian stocks by Americans so I imagine it is costly for American brokers to set up the necessary infrastructure to complete timely trades on Canadian exchanges.
There are lots of Canadian stocks on American exchanges actually...the really known ones are usually but not always the bigger players in the Canadian markets.
FinViz shows 174 Canadian companies on the Major US exchanges as shown above.
HOWEVER, there are hundreds more listed on the Pinks and OTCB that are also available....however, most serious American investors do not look there because of the reputation that stocks in this group are all manipulated scams. But that is not necessarily true (though it is mostly true when it comes to American stocks)
Many Canadian companies use the the PINKS and OTCB as a less expensive entry into the American market.
Consider WAJAX Corporation [TSX:WJX] [OTCB:WJXFF] a major supplier/renter of heavy equipment company whose clients includes all mines and oil companies in Canada....not a small market....it has a solid 6% dividend as well
You can see the American OTCB version of the stock tracked the Canadian version closely until the beginning of this year...the Canadian stock is rising while the American version is falling in price....THIS IS EXACTLY the same company....though the volume of shares traded are far less on the American side.
the difficulty I suppose is that up to the end of 2013 the Canadian dollar was relatively near parity with the USA dollar so I would expect the fall in the American price represents the changing exchange rates rather than interest in the company...we have the same problem when we invest in American companies.
Here is another company that is a major player in its industry in Canada
Here is a solid company that has a listing in the Pinks that is worth over $200/share and looking at that snapshot chart a pretty steady winner...that track each other.... {go figure , eh!}
So the UPSHOT of this is....YOU CAN invest in Canadian Stocks through the Major US exchanges or through the OTCB and PINKS.....yep there are a lot of scam stocks in the lower echelons of the OTCB/Pinks but there are some pretty good ones too that track their Canadian counter parts quite well
Here is a stock screen of Canadian Stocks over $5 on the OTCB/PINKS
Just tick off Canada in the "Locale" and the common and ordinary ticks in the security type and set the min price to $5 and you will find 227 of them.
Because of the reduced volumes though....they would NOT BE SUITABLE for day trading or probably very short swings but otherwise if you are more of a long term hold they should be fine if you find decent ones.
ONE WORD OF WARNING from my experience.....IF you find a Canadian company that lists on American exchanges (including Pinks and OTCB) but it does NOT list on a Canadian exchange (TSX or Canadian Venture) it has a high chance of being a scam stock...this applies especially to stocks in the OIL & Gas and Mining Sectors.
Other than this...you could also choose a Global Trading account...I think E-trade has one and there are others and then you have access to Canadian stocks but the commission fees are very high...probably near full service fees.
