According to our media: yes, smartphones are OK (until Samsung introduces more exploding models...).So smartphones are OK? Is this a conspiracy by the smartphone lobby to put the final nail in the coffin for the camera industry?
Flying into Canada will not help. In many things, Canada and the United States are effectively the same entity. Air travel is one of them. That's why you'll see uniformed US customs and immigration officials in Canadian airports. In many US airports, flights to Canada are grouped in with domestic. When coming through immigration, Canadian passport holders are grouped in with US passport holders. Everyone else goes to foreign passports. To be politically correct, I tend to say "North America" now instead of US or Canada when referring to such things. Although last week when I said I could tell someone was Canadian by her accent, she objected and said I could do no such thing. She insisted she had no accent.
Since I have an insurance my main worry isn't the money but the tiny chance of losing my gear/photos:
1) no camera on vacation means vacation ruined (yes, my vacations are 90% about taking photos)
2) losing camera + photo backups would be even more catastrophic (which is why I store photos on camera, laptop and a 128GB SSD USB-stick).
My insurance company will pay the gear but no one / nothing will make up for the lost pictures.
PS. As a security specialist I know not to store any important/delicate information on my laptop and I treat it as the data inside will get leaked/stolen. That still doesn't mean I'd be happy to lose it though.