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MONTREAL — Canada Post trucks, conveyors and mail carriers swung back into motion Tuesday after a month-long strike by more than 55,000 postal workers left letters and parcels in limbo and a massive backlog to sort through.
Following a ministerial directive, the country’s labour board ordered employees back on the job when it determined the two sides stood too far apart to reach a deal by year’s end.
The resumption of operations brought relief to Canadians across the country amid the peak holiday shopping season, though some customers’ faith in the 157-year-old institution emerged a little bruised.
Narintip Wiang In said she was excited and relieved to pick up her Thai passport, which had arrived at a postal outlet in downtown Vancouver the day before the strike began.
“I didn’t catch up with the news, so I didn’t know,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for a month to collect this.”
She said she needed her passport for a travel visa to the U.S., and she’s also applying for immigration to Canada with a deadline clock ticking down.
After leaving the post office, she said she was headed straight to Staples to ship the documents with FedEx because she no longer trusted the postal service with her important immigration papers.
“I’m running out of time. It may cause my visa to be refused.”
Canada Post warned that customers should expect delays as it works through big backlogs — “mail and parcels trapped in the system” — and that holdups will likely persist into the new year.
“With a large, integrated network of processing plants, depots and post offices, stabilizing operations will take time and the company asks Canadians for their patience,” it said in a release Monday.
Items stranded in the system include passports, health cards, Christmas cards and gifts, medication and even at-home cancer screening kits.
Canada Post handled nearly 8.5 million letters and 1.1 million parcels per weekday on average last year — and much more of both in the holiday season.
Post offices will not take new commercial letters and packages until Thursday, the Crown corporation said.
They began accepting individuals’ shipments Tuesday morning. Ontario resident Roland Horner dropped off envelopes bearing donations to the Salvation Army and other charities soon after doors opened at a location in Burlington.
“Hopefully they’ll get them before the year end,” he said.
Don Suppelsa, mailing a gift package bound for his sister and brother-in-law in Nova Scotia, complained that private carriers had been taking advantage of Canadians in the postal service’s absence.
“They were charging a lot more to send stuff, but I waited,” he said at an outlet in Oshawa, Ont.
The Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered workers back on the job after a directive from Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, who said Friday he was giving the two sides a “timeout” as negotiations seemed to have stalled.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has contested the move, with the labour board set to hear its challenges in mid-January, the union said.
Canada Post employee Kim Gozzard said she was “very happy” to return to the office and expecting a busy day.
“I feel wonderful to be back at work … to look after my customers, and hopefully get everything moving and going again,” she said in Oshawa.
Gozzard said while Ottawa’s intervention will put the union in a weaker position at the next round of bargaining, it was necessary to kick-start service.
“I feel both sides needed to be willing to sit and negotiate,” she said. “It shouldn’t have been drawn that long and I blame both sides.”
Not all workers were back in uniform Tuesday. Employees refused to cross a picket line drawn by an assortment of unionized groups — not postal workers — at a Canada Post processing centre near the Vancouver airport in Richmond, B.C.
Meanwhile, the broader labour dispute continues to simmer.
Key issues include the size of wage increases and a push by Canada Post to expand delivery to the weekend, with the two parties at odds over how to staff the move.
The money-losing Crown corporation has pitched the expansion as a way to boost revenue and compete with other carriers, arguing that a mix of part-time and full-time shifts will create flexibility while keeping costs down. However, the union has characterized this as an attack on full-time work.
The government has appointed an industrial inquiry commission to look into the sticking points and come up with recommendations by May 15 on how a new agreement can be secured. Existing contracts have been extended to May 22.
The inquiry will also assess “the entire structure of Canada Post from both a customer and business model standpoint,” given the challenging competitive climate it faces, the labour minister said Friday. The organization has lost $3.3 billion since 2018, as letter mail declined and competitors gobbled up large chunks of the parcel market.
While months of hard-nosed bargaining lie ahead, the holiday spirit permeated the halls of one downtown Fredericton post office.
Mary Bardsley arrived at the brick building bearing Christmas cards and a Tim Hortons gift card for employees, who were greeting a steady stream of morning customers. She said she’s not worried about her holiday mail being held up.
“I’ve lived a long life,” Bardsley said with a laugh. “I can cope with almost anything.”
— With files from Darryl Greer in Vancouver, Sharif Hassan in Oshawa, Ont., Nicole Thompson in Burlington, Ont., and Hina Alam in Fredericton
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2024.
Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press