US parents of CDN Res - avoid probate without trust?

[Alex]

I live in Canada. My mother lives in U.S. She wants to avoid probate on her estate.

My questions are:

1. I remember seeing somewhere that doing this via a US trust can have bad capital gains consequences for me since by Canadian law I would inherit the assets at their original cost instead of their market value at the time of transfer. Is that correct/do you agree?

2. However, she told me that she is not setting up a trust for me. She simply opened her accounts with me as the beneficiary on all of her investments. Does this solve the problem? Would my Canadian cost basis be the market value at time of inheritance or would my Canadian cost be the amount that she originally paid for the assets?

3. Does the answer to my last question depend on whether the assets are held in a taxable US account or in a retirement account like ira, roth, 401k, etc.?

Thank you for the great forum and thanks in advance for any advise you can give me on this.