From what my lawyer told me, running/online casino in canada, would be a felony for: operating a gaming house. His advice
1. Don’t solicit Canadians to gamble, then the authorities have no right to investigate you.
2. Keep servers and operations outside Canada
3. Only work with Operators that are licensed to operate in the jurisdiction that the casino is in.
I’ve pretty much followed that.
It was my impression that it was always as illegal or even more illegal in Canada than the US. It’s just that Canada isn’t out to fill it’s prisons, as the US is…. BUT there is big scandal with the Ontario Lottery (the lottery corp runs casinos too), so no doubt they’ll start complaining about online gambling to shift the focus away from their own stupidity.