Canada Post denies Christmas backlog

Canada Post is denying claims from it’s union that a huge backlog of Christmas gifts and other holiday mail is sitting undelivered in Winnipeg.

It’s the latest shot in the war of words between the corporation and its carriers over a new sorting and delivery system, which the union insists, does not work.

Global News followed along Tuesday as a Canada Post parcel truck, filled to the brim, made deliveries in St. James today. The union representing postal workers says many of the packages likely contain Christmas gifts that should have been under the tree last month.

"Today (postal workers) were telling me they’re delivering stuff that was slated for delivery December 20th, so that gives us some idea they’re maybe a week to ten days behind," says Bob Tyre of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. the union blames a shortage of staff and a new sorting and delivery system originating at the corporation’s state-of-the-art sorting centre at Winnipeg’s airport.

"Machines can only do so much. And you actually need people to do the delivery," Tyre says.

The union has made a number of complaints since the new system was implemented last year; workers delivered flyers and lightbulbs to homeowners in the fall, to highlight their complaint that they are now required to make deliveries in the dark. And several workers staged one-day walkouts late last year.

But Canada Post rejected claims of a Christmas delivery backlog as untrue.

"I don’t want to speculate on what the union may be talking about, what I can tell you is what Canada post knows to be factual and that’s that we delivered our christmas mail on time and on schedule," Canada Post spokesperson Kathi Neal told Global News Tuesday.

Neal says only 20 percent of Winnipeg’s Christmas parcel mail came late, and only by a day or two.

A huge pile of parcels could be seen at Canada Post’s sorting facility Tuesday, but Neal says that is just business as usual and there is no holiday backlog.

"I checked with our mail operations and our computer systems that do track Canada post parcels and all our floors were clean and our mail was delivered on December the 24th," Neal says.