strike

Now that the strike is over letters and parcels are now being sorted; And everyone involved has clearly stated delays are to be expected, especially for rural communities.

Unfortunately, I don’t see how they could possibly get through it all without delivering letters and parcels this weekend, or at least make some of it available for pick-up at the commercial post offices. But the delivery of parcels to homes on the weekend would not likely be a long term solution.

I suspect the preferable response would be like that of the locker system like found at the larger Canadian Tire stores, where one can use a bar code to unlock a locker containing their parcel(s) at their local Post Office. And I guess some of the empty post office boxes could be adapted to provide that service for smaller parcels.

At the moment I can only pick up parcels at my local post office if I rent a post office box or use FlexDelivery, a service also offered by Amazon Canada and Walmart Canada that diverts parcels to my local post office. But I believe most parcels may not be delivered to the commercial post offices on weekends, and rural post offices are usually also closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

The new community hubs also offer limited services on weekends, which is a shame because parcels could also be delivered to those on Saturdays. But the looming deficits are hindering investment in new infrastructure, which may be necessary for the corporation’s survival.

Small businesses in Canada suffer because they lack access to affordable shipping, including most Canadian sellers on eBay, and there can only be so many conventions and pop up shops through-out the year to help them sell their merchandise, so we’re talking about a major crisis.

Last mile postal deliveries are also an issue for postal imports and everyone that has ever imported something using a courier service knows how expensive their brokerage fees can get ; I’ve actually paid fees surpassing the value of the product imported and the $20 postal import exemption is of little value now because of inflation.

I’m surprised the new trade free trade agreement in-between Canada, the United States and Mexico didn’t include a higher exemption rate, which should have been $60 (like the current rate on gift shipments). But that’s a subject for another post…

The ship has sailed when it comes to personal and commercial letter mail, so Canada Post needs to expand to remain relevant. And that can’t be done without major investment from the government.

Satellite internet should be a priority for the more remote rural offices, with long range wi-fi retransmission, as should the expansion of the community hubs. And that wont be cheap…