I trade quite actively with IB. I have never had any problems. Be aware that Canadian Data is charged for. Real time quotes are $6 and if you want market depth there is an additional fee. The venture exchange(Vancouver) is also additional . Their charting leaves a lot to be desired. Be prepared to find and pay for a decent charting program. I have used TradeFreedom, Questrade and Disnat along with RBC. I have found that with my type of trading( 100 to 1000 shares) that IB cost less overall . All the others have a minimum # of trades per month to maintain the trading platform and also charge exchange fees for market orders. I find trading less than 1000 shares at a time and paying the monthly fee for data, that the savings add up to more than you gain by getting free data and platform usage from the other brokers. If you need hand holding IB is not the broker you want.
deaddog, thanks for letting me know about additional charges. I will be on a lookout for this.. No, I don't think I expect any hand holding
What kind of trading are you planning on doing that you need direct access? IB for what ever reason requires minimum 25K to day trade. I believe that is with Canadian stocks as well as US. One account lets you trade stocks/ futures/ options/forex. Their platform takes some getting used to. It is not the same as most Canadian Brokers have. You can get a demo account but you have to open and fund a regular account to do that.
I am planning to trade US stocks, maybe some Canadian. 100-1000 shares per trade. 10-20 day trades per week to start. I want to paper trade at the beginning, and it's true their platform is not intuitive.. I don't want to jump from platform to platform as the learning curve is quite steep
you really have no choice in the beginning but to experiment from one platform to the next until you found one that suits your situation. i used TradeStation (not available in Canada) and stuck with it since 2006 and not look elsewhere for "better". i think IB is recommended since many trader friends use it together with eSignal charting. if you liked this combination (IB + eSignal) then master the platform and don't look elsewhere.