Hey man, I live in Vancouver as well. I think there's quite a few ways to get gear.
The cheapest way to get new gear in Vancouver is to shop online on US websites and have them ship to Point Roberts. Point Roberts is a half island that belongs to the US but is only connected to Canada. There are many warehouses in Point Roberts that allow you to register an account (e.g. TSB Shipping, P2P Parcel, the Letter Carrier) so that if you buy things from American websites you can ship there and then go pick up for $3.50 per package.
The reason why this is interesting is because 1. goods on US websites are cheaper 2. shipping over $50 on US websites are usually free 3. Point Roberts has no border lineups during weekdays, and is about 20 minutes away from Richmond, or 40 minutes away from Downtown Vancouver. 4. BC taxes are about 12% but US websites usually charge little to no taxes and 5. the border at Point Roberts usually will not collect any tariffs/duties/taxes from you even if you report around $300-$350 value in goods.
Websites to check include dogfunk.com (has a sale right now); evo.com, rei.com, tactics.com, the-house.com, trusnow.com. Also check out whiskeymilitia.com which belongs to dogfunk but they put up one item at a discount every 15 minutes. You won't see ski/snowboard gear all the time but I've bought some pretty cheap items on there. E.g. Park Pickle for around $250, 20k waterproof denim pants for $70, or Electric EG 2 for $60.
Another option is to routinely check Craigslist. While most deals are crap on the site, sometimes a good deal pops up. For example I helped a buddy get a set of almost new (not even a single scratch) Lib Tech TRS Snowboard + Burton Cartel Bindings for $250 from a pro-boarder-turned-pro-surfer-moving-to-hawaii
There's also Sport Junkies on Broadway where people consign their used gear. Sometimes really good stuff are up there for very cheap. The way that shop works is the seller goes into the store and sets a price that they want to sell at. The store then puts up the item, and reduces the price on that item every month or so when the good is not sold. So over time you can sometimes find really good deals.
Of course the last option is to check out the shops on 4th avenue. They carry quality gear and the staff are very helpful. If I had more money, I'd buy everything from them. They've helped me fix my gear free of charge on so many occasions (e.g. went in to fix a broken binding ratchet, they don't have spare parts to fix it, called up neighbor stores, ran next door and got me the part I needed, told me it was free)
Oh yeah... avoid sportchek/sportmart and large sports equipment shops... they overprice their goods then "discount" them. They also carry shitty equipment for the most part.