Well, because of the pricing BS, Expedia lost my business for this trip. Instead I booked with Orbitz (linked through Kayak) for a total of US$1125. This will come out up to $1475 depending on the rate when it posts to my CC and how badly the rate gets bumped by the card issuer.

For this greater that CAD$200 increase in price I get the following benefits:

Direct flights out and back (back flight is the same as previous itinerary).
Outbound flight leaves at 8:30am instead of 6am, but only arrives 25 minutes later (no connection = more sleep for Bruno)

Now the only oddity I see is that Orbitz order details state the departure date as Thursday April 9th and not April 10th which I requested. The Hotel reservation says the same dates. Which can't be right or the price would be a lot higher for the extra night's stay. Weird. The same April 9 to April 15 through Expedia rings up at CAD$1777

Looking into this now.