At the risk of repeating a few bits that are already in this thread:
1. The Canada Post regulations are internal regulations for a Crown Corporation. They are not LAWS.
2. This decision is certainly months old, and is not one of the new changes coming into effect tomorrow - as I understood it, tomorrow's changes are all monetary as opposed to "policy" but I have not pursied this.
3. Firearms owners need to comply with the LAW (or not, if you are a LUFA member or whatever - your personal choice). The LAW states that we can ship firearms via Canada Post and specifically mandates a signature requirement. The LAW does not state that we have to use a specific service provided by CP. If the mealy-mouthed money-grubbing low-life scum-suckers at CP HQ decide to try to screw us by making an interpretation that one of their services is more secure than another, we can just as properly make our own security assessment and decide that CP is blowing air up their butts. There is a very significant monetary difference between Priority Courier charges and regular parcel post/Expedited Parcel charges, generally more than double.
4. I have mailed quite a goodly number of firearms around the country. Most times I use the CP Expedited Parcel service (I got a small business "Venture One" card through my privately-owned corporation, which has nothing to do with firearms), I always insure the parcel for full value, and I always get signature on delivery. Signature only costs $1.50 and is specifically mandated by law. Insurance is seventy-five cents per hundred dollars of insured value, so IMHO that is also cheap.
5. As a number of folks have pointed out, and I wish to underline emphatically, you do NOT have to declare what is in your parcel, but you do have to warrant that it does not contain dangerous goods. It is simply nobody's business what you have in the box. If you feel compelled to tell somebody who is being nosey, tell them sporting goods or (what I also say, as somebody else mentioned), GOLF CLUBS.
6. If your parcel goes astray and you need to tell CP what was in it, tell them the truth. You have not broken ANY LAW, you may not have complied with some internal Canada Post regulation, but you have no civic duty to know that regulation. You are required to know the LAW, which you complied with by paying for signature on delivery when you mailed the parcel.
7. For the record, Sako 220 is a very good guy.
Doug