One year after a nationwide Canada Post strike left many scrambling to find alternative shipping options during the busy holiday season, could another strike happen?
With the holiday clock counting down, the Crown corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are still negotiating a new contract with the help of federal mediators, and the company has submitted plans to overhaul its business to the federal government.
As of now, the CUPW is conducting rotating strikes where some postal workers at specific locations engage in work stoppages for scheduled periods.
Global News reached out to both Canada Post and CUPW asking whether another strike could happen this holiday season.
In response to questions from Global News, the Crown corporation said there’s not yet “stability.”
“As we continue to manage the union’s rotating strikes and until we have stability in our network, we recommend that customers review our Shipping delivery standards when sending packages to friends and loved ones for the Holiday season,” Canada Post said in an emailed statement.
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
“Shutting down and restarting parts of our integrated national network with rotating strikes has always challenged our ability to provide reliable service to customers. As a result, all service guarantees are suspended, including on-time delivery guarantees for parcel services.”
Global News also heard back from the CUPW Wednesday about whether further job action is possible in the coming days and weeks.
“The Canadian Union of Postal Workers wants to put labour uncertainty behind us which is why we are trying to achieve ratifiable negotiated settlements at the bargaining table,” the union said in an emailed statement.
“Negotiations between CUPW and Canada Post supported by federal mediators are ongoing. However, we have still not received information about the plan which Canada Post submitted to the Government.”
After months of bargaining talks between the CUPW and Canada Post, more than 55,000 unionized workers with the company walked off the job in a nationwide strike starting Nov. 15, 2024.
Most individuals and businesses went without deliveries by Canada Post, including regular mail and parcel shipments amid the job action.
Canada Post reported nearly 10 million parcel deliveries were missed within the first two weeks of the strike.
The job action may have also impacted traditional letters sent to Santa.
Although larger companies may have their own delivery systems and networks to ensure deliveries, smaller business owners rely heavily on Canada Post for its lower cost shipping options and its ability to reach more rural and remote areas.
Many businesses that relied on Canada Post for shipments during the strike were able to find alternative private carriers, such as FedEx, UPS and Purolator — but those typically come with higher costs.
“For business owners that are preparing for their holiday packages, Canada Post is at the moment an option, but you really need to make sure that your package is going to get to its end destination,” says Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
“We need an agreement between Canada Post and its workers, and we need that yesterday to ensure that we can salvage some of the holiday season for small business owners.”
Kelly added that the option of using a private courier might not be available for all.
“Canada Post is often the low-cost player, and the business may not be able to come or the customer may refuse to pay the additional premium to use a private courier option,”he says.
“Secondly, in the last strike at Canada Post, private couriers stopped accepting new deliveries because they were overwhelmed due to the strike.”
After a month-long strike, the federal labour relations board ordered postal workers to return to work.
The backlog that resulted from the strike meant there were still delays with just days to go before Christmas.
Ottawa intervened with the commitment of Industrial Inquiry Commission to review the structural issues at Canada Post and release a report by May 2025. At the time, Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said the IIC’s report will “serve as a solid basis for both parties to negotiate their collective agreements.”
The ICC’s report released in May found Canada Post was “effectively insolvent” and recommended changes to right-size the business operations. These included ending daily mail delivery, increasing the number of community mailboxes and expanding parcel delivery schedules to include weekends.
In August, Canada Post reported it lost $407 million, marking its largest loss in a single quarter.
“A lot of businesses are deeply scarred from the service interruptions at Canada Post over the last year, and it can take decades to change the reputation of a service provider once you’ve burned your customer,” says Kelly.
“The lack of reliability is what’s killing businesses. They are afraid to use Canada Post for fear that there could be another general job action, and then they’re out of business because they’re not able to meet the demand from their customers.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
