Fellow Rogers user here.
On September 19th, Bell Mobility announced an unlimited EVDO plan for laptop cards. Hopefully this is a sign of times to come...
There is an alternative if you're daring and have a U.S. address -- it has worked for some Canadians -- is to get a T-Mobile BlackBerry and get the Unlimited International Email Plan. (which apparently also works with everything that goes through the blackberry.net APN, such as BlackBerry Browser). Surf anywhere in the world, for free... $19.99 main data + $19.99 Unlimited International Email (BlackBerry data). With the low Canadian dollar, it's a good time to get such a plan. Just don't use gigabytes, or T-Mobile might clamp down... And may be a good idea to at least make sure you use up a little U.S. data every year, too.
You do have to pay a lot more to make phone calls (international roaming now applies), but if you don't make much phone calls anyway, this is one way to do things.
I have a 200 MB data plan and got a voice plan on top -- you just have to make them separate lineitems on the bill. I'm paying for essentially two separate plans on one phone: For the 200 MB data-only plan, and for a voice-only plan, combined onto the same phone, resulting in a 200 MB BlackBerry plan with a voice plan on it. (Tiny consolation prize: I pay SAF and 911 fee only once. Ah well). You're allowed to get any voice plan with the 200 MB plan, just that there is no discount.
Howard Forums veterans (
HowardForums: Your Mobile Phone Community & Resource) know that if you get to Rogers Customer Relations after you already have a phone plan, you may be able to get the $5 for 1000 long distance minutes on Rogers (assuming you re-sign a new 3 year contract), plus you can use Rogers MY5 + Rogers Unlimited Incoming and an access number to make outgoing long distance calls around the world for flat rate or cheap. i.e. the equivalent of Country Fido (City Fido country wide) can be kind of engineered on a Rogers plan if you're smart with combining MY5, Unlimited Incoming, $5-for-1000 LD, and an access number (calling card style). There's also a utility called BerryDialer so you can just select an addressbook item on BlackBerry and it automatically calls the number through a calling card.
Yeah, it sucks. But there are "workarounds"...