As Canada Post strike hits 2 weeks, most businesses want reform: survey

With the Canada Post strike entering its second week on Thursday, small businesses in Canada want to see the postal service reformed, a new survey shows.

Nearly nine in 10 small businesses (87 per cent) in Canada are calling for changes in the way the Crown corporation is run, a survey conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) released on Thursday shows.

“Canada needs a national postal service, but not in its current form. We’re glad to see the federal government taking steps to modernize Canada Post services,” said CFIB executive vice-president Corinne Pohlmann in a statement.

0:37 Canada Post’s latest offer ‘worse’ than before: union

“It’s already losing customers and millions of dollars every day. Doing nothing would just sentence Canada Post to extinction,” Pohlmann added.

The report found that more than half (52 per cent) of small businesses support reduced residential mail delivery through Canada Post, while a similar number (51 per cent) say Canada Post should replace door-to-door delivery with community mailboxes.

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Some businesses support starker measures, such as limiting or freezing employee compensation packages over the next few years (45 per cent) and replacing corporate postal outlets with franchised locations (42 per cent).

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) on Wednesday wrote a letter to Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu, arguing that the Liberal government was “undermining” the fair bargaining process.

“Over the course of these negotiations, there has been a repeated and troubling pattern of political intervention that has delayed, disrupted, and ultimately disrespected the bargaining process,” CUPW president Jan Simpson said in the letter to Hajdu.

CUPW on Wednesday met with Government Transformation Minister Joël Lightbound, who oversees Canada Post, for the first time since he announced changes to the company’s mail delivery business.

CUPW workers went to the picket lines hours after Lightbound’s announcement, saying the proposed changes — including phasing out door-to-door delivery and closing some post offices deemed unnecessary — would “gut” the postal service and lead to layoffs.

The union has also slammed Canada Post for presenting new contract offers last week that CUPW called “even worse” than the company’s proposals in May, which were overwhelmingly rejected by workers this summer.

— With files from Global’s Sean Boynton.