Purolator and UPS have temporarily suspended shipments from some courier companies as they face a backlog of deliveries amid the ongoing Canada Post strike.
Purolator, which is owned by Canada Post, told Global News in an emailed statement on Friday that its network is “currently experiencing service disruptions due to severe weather and a significant increase in volume.”
“We recently made the decision to temporarily pause service to some select partners, including third-party platforms,” the company said.
“This was necessary to maintain the integrity of our network, ensure the health and safety of our employees and allow us to prioritize critical shipments.”
Purolator said it is assessing its network’s workload and will try to resume service “as soon as possible.”
Couriers such as eShipper, which act as middlemen between smaller e-commerce businesses and large carriers, are among the companies temporarily barred from shipping with Purolator and UPS.
A notice sent from eShipper to clients and obtained by The Canadian Press says “no shipments will be processed or moved by these carriers” for 48 hours, starting Wednesday.
These suspensions on top of the nationwide Canada Post strike are leaving Canadians with fewer and sometime more expensive options during the busy holiday shopping season.
Last week, the U.S. Postal Service also temporarily suspended Canada-bound mail due to the Canada Post strike.
U.S. customers are being asked to refrain from mailing items to Canada, until further notice.
The nationwide Canada Post strike entered its fourth week on Friday, with no signs of ending.
The postal shutdown is costing businesses millions each day and impacting Canadians across the country.
Seven in 10 Canadians say they have already been affected by delays in either sending or receiving packages, according to the findings of a recent Angus Reid Institute poll that was released this week.
Jim Bookbinder, a logistics professor at the University of Waterloo, said the strike is particularly affecting small businesses and households in remote areas that rely on Canada Post.
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“For small businesses, Canada Post is their means of sending items to customers and for ordinary households in the rural areas, Canada Post is their lifeline,” he said in an interview with Global News.
As the holiday shopping season approaches Christmas and Boxing Day, Bookbinder said time is running out for Ottawa to intervene.
“I think if they don’t intervene in the next week, I think we’ve pretty well lost this holiday season,” he said.
British Columbia-based newspaper publisher Supply Post is among those feeling the impacts of the Canada Post strike.
Jeff Watson, president of Supply Post, said his third-generation family business in Langley Township, B.C., uses Canada Post to send up to 20,000 copies of their paper and another 150 to 200 courier packages to truck stops and newsstands across the country each month.
A lot of those copies are being held up because of the postal shutdown, Watson told Global News.
“At this point, our direct mail newspaper copies are not in circulation. They’ll be delayed until this strike is settled. We’re just doing everything we can to get extra copies out through our bulk partners and providing extra services on the digital side of our business.”
Watson said they haven’t yet assessed the financial impact of the strike, but their “receivables are tens of thousands of dollars behind.”
“The longer it goes on, the higher of an impact it’s going to have on the overall business for all the people involved there.”
Even if the strike were to stop today, Bookbinder said it would take Canada Post at least a couple of weeks to play catch up.
“If the government were to intervene, the question is, is it better to do it sooner or later? And I would think sooner, because either way, the union won’t be happy, but the public may be if the government intervenes.”
Bookbinder said even though the Crown corporation does offer an essential service, “it’s hard to see that Canada Post would be designated that way” by the federal government.
Most Canadians (57 per cent) are in favour of the federal government intervening in the ongoing postal strike, according to a recent Leger poll.
However, Ottawa has so far resisted calls to intervene.
Mediated talks between Canada Post and Canadian Union of Postal Workers were temporarily suspended last week as both parties remained “too far apart on critical issues.”
“We urge the parties to get back to the negotiating table,” Matthieu Perrotin, press secretary for Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, said in a statement to Global News on Friday.
“Parties must do the work necessary to reach a deal, as Canadians are counting on them. Negotiated agreements are always the best way forward.”
Canada Post said on Thursday that it has received the union’s latest counterproposal through the mediator and is reviewing it.
“The union has been ready to return to the mediation process since it was suspended by the government’s special mediator,” the CUPW said in its statement on Wednesday.
“As such, our counter proposals contain movement on both our demands and employer’s demands to help bring the parties closer to an agreement.”
For more on the specifics of what Canada Post workers want, read here.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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