Head to your local gaming store. There are usually signs advertising games starting up soon, or regular meetings at or near the shop. Ask the guy behind the counter if he knows of any spare games. Or you could try the university, or your local Warhammer group. Geeks of one stripe tend to get into many different things, and become geeks of many stripes.
As for what you'll need to start playing, unless you intend to start DMing a game of your own, all you should need is a copy of the Player's Handbook. It contains everything you need to get started. From there, you can acquire the Dungeon Master's Guide + Monster's Manual if you want to run your own game, or the various supplements for whichever world (Eberron, Forgotten Realms, etc) you play in. If you're made of money or Super Keen, you could even shell out for the class-specific supplements such as The Complete Fighter.
But to start with, all you need is the Player's Handbook. I don't know how much it is in Canada, but around here it's about $AU60.
http://www.wizards.com should have the Canadian prices.
EDIT: Oh, and in case it's not obvious, I play. I don't have a game running at the moment, but I occasionally run a Planescape campaign, and I've played in several long campaigns over the years. My email/Livejournal tag, goblinpaladin, is in reference to one of my favourite characters: the goblin paladin Ar-Gyrak.
