Have you contacted Roku support? Not this forum, actual Roku support? They helped me with a very weird issue in the past and it was pretty good.
I am not sure what you mean by saying you can't find the channels on the "Roku website", do you mean in the Roku user interface on the tv? If you are signed in to a Roku account that has all the correct location information in it the below should be the easiest way to add a channel.
Press (home) on your remote to open the main screen.
Scroll down and select Streaming Channels to open the Channel Store.
At the top of the Channel Store is a list of featured, new and popular categories to explore.
Scroll down and select Search Channels
Press the right arrow button and type channel name in the search box
Scroll to the right to select from the list
Press the ok button to select the channel
Press the ok button to add the channel
If you have a Roku account PIN, then you will be required to enter it.
If that doesn't work then your account thinks you are not on Canada, has absolutely nothing to do with the device itself. If you can't find any errors in your profile maybe just make a new one and make sure it's correct.
The device thinks i am on another planet - neither canada or us.
to add a channel from the website as has been suggested. people keep telling me to do the same things I have done several times. I can figure out how to add a channel from the home screen but I don't have any options for Crave or CBC on this home screen. only on the website but they are not highlighted so I cannot add them ( CBC and Crave)
anyway i have packed the thing up to return as it's garbage. and a waste of several days of my time
https://channelstore.roku.com/en-ca/details/32a1b59fad4eed5fadb383616666af86/crave
this is an example - i cannot add CRAVE
THIS IS ABOUT CBC GEM, not about a clearly defective Roku stick go exchange it!, everyone else can get crave, this thread is a about CBC GEM
Your example links don't help as for everyone else they work fine (mine shows "already installed" when I click those links.
The issue is with your ACCOUNT not with your DEVICE. The device itself is almost 100 percent not faulty. You still haven't said if you have contacted Roku support, which leads me to believe you have not. You seem resistant to following suggestions for some reason. But go ahead and return it, just do not buy another Roku device to replace it as you will have the exact same issue if you use the same account.
This is derailing this thread but it's fine because Roku has told me very clearly that CBC needs to make the gem app available and CBC has told me very clearly they have to plans to. I bought a Google tv and no longer use my Roku for streaming services but still have it because it's built into my tv.