http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/scanner.html
I was very much inspired by this Wandel guy. He is a geek from your place, yes, Canada.
He completed many self assigned interesting projects. He converted his obsolete flatbed scanner into a digital camera! Cool!:D
He somehow re-programmed the scanner to take pictures. I am intrigued by this reprogramming part. I think he wrote a new driver software for the scanner. Check out his site. I have read other guys having done this camera thing. One geek submitted a whole thesis on that subject in this PHD!