Paraphrasing an old joke: easy, fast, cheap; pick two.

Bitstamp doesn't support CAD at all and if your goal is to get funds into your Bitstamp account you don't need Ripple to do it (unless you're trying to leverage your Ripple credit lines).

Assuming what you really want is to get CAD into Ripple then as Joel says there are two gateways that support CAD directly. But you may not want/need to do that at all depending on what you want to do.

WeExchange supports CAD and does bank transfers, but you should check out the Ripple Live Graph for the WeExchange CAD first (set the currency to Other then type CAD and explore the reach by clicking the nodes with thin circles around them), only two people hold any at all totalling only ~$170 and only four others trust WeExchange-CAD for anything over 1 CAD (thus the people that you could currently pay with WeExchange CAD is limited) (compare that with the $74816 of Bitstamp-USD that people currently hold in Ripple). There also isn't much/any trading of WeExchange-CAD for other currencies (even on WeEx itself!) so you're kinda stuck with it. This may improve when Ripple gets out of beta.

RippleUnion supports CAD but only (as far as I know, check the website as they keep adding things) supports adding funds to Ripple from the old/classic Ripplepay system. However, RippleUnion has some interesting options for getting money out of Ripple. Also note that (at least for now) RippleUnion charges no transit fess. WeExchange charges 0.5% everytime their funds change hands and Bitstamp charges 0.2% (similar to how the exchanges charge (larger) fees for every trade).

As Joel says Bitstamp doesn't support CAD, but if you can send them USD or bitcoin there is a market within Ripple to exchange that for RippleUnion-CAD. See the Ripple client's order book for CAD/USD (or USD/CAD if you prefer) with the issuers set to RippleUnion-CAD and Bitstamp-USD (click "change issuer" and paste the Ripple addresses or add them to your contact list to use the names).


Do you really need/want to put your CAD bank funds into Ripple at this time? (Bitcoin is different since you can trivially get it in and out of Ripple via both WeEx and Bitstamp). What would you do right now with CAD in Ripple? Since Ripple is only in Beta there are currently no merchants (other than RippleUnion's proxy) that accept Ripple payments. If you want to use it to send funds to friends then you can arrange trust/credit lines between your friends to do so without any bank transfers at all (except possibly to settle debts later if the need arises). If you want to be able send funds to strangers on the internet (e.g. to buy/sell something ala bitcoin-otc) then you may still be able to do so just by getting a trust/credit line to someone that has a credit path to a gateway. If you want to be a merchent and sell things then of course you instead need to look at how the gateways can send you bitcoin or bank funds.

Personally I think the easiest way to get started and get some "value"/funds into Ripple right now is either with bitcoin (by far the easiest at the moment) or to have a friend/aquaintence that has a credit path to the gateway(s) you're interested in extend you credit. If they won't trust you with credit you could always pay them (in person with cash, with Paypal, whatever) and in return they'd send you matching funds in Ripple (just make sure you're aware of what you can and can't do with the resulting IOU; either make sure you get an IOU from a gateway you trust or that you trust the person and they have a path to a gateway you want to use or the people you want to pay). From a quick scan of your forum profile it looks like you're comfortable doing some otc style trades so you could always ask to trade for any of RippleUnion-CAD, Bitstamp-USD, Bitstamp-BTC, or XRP (you'd agree to send them some kind of payment outside of Ripple and they'd send the agreed amount by paying you from within Ripple).