Its an agreement. The seller has a responsibility to send the item won to the winning bidder. The seller has up to 30 days to get the item to the winning bidder. If this has not happened you can file a claim at which ebay will investigate the problem(You can only file the claim after the 30 days are up). This has happened to me a few times. Yes it is a hassle having to wait 2 months to get my money back. But it is better then not getting my money back. However if you buy an item and the listing says "as is" then that is exactly that and there is nothing they nor you can do about it. You take the gamble in buying anything that states "as is".
I have bought many items from people in canada. The only difference is it took a couple days longer to receive the item, but I can deal with that.