Calgary businesses are wondering how to navigate yet another Canada Post strike after workers walked off the job Thursday.
This comes after the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) launched a nationwide strike on Thursday, halting Canada Post mail delivery across the country.
The walk-off came as the federal government gave Canada Post the green light to significantly pull back on mail delivery service over the span of a few years.
Tara Nelson’s AdaptAbility Store in Calgary’s University District is nearing three years of operation. However, one landmark that Nelson isn’t as fond of is the second Canada Post strike the business is going through.
The store sells products specifically catered to the special needs community, which ships across the country and around the world. However, the strike could complicate that.
“We ship a ton of our orders via Canada Post. A lot of our customers are rural, and sometimes that’s the only option to ship for them, so we have no choice but to either not ship to them or have to ship with a more expensive shipper,” Nelson told CityNews.
Some of AdaptAbility’s customers pay via mail by sending a cheque. Learning from the previous strike, they are now trying to get their customers to switch to online payments.
“We were delayed in getting payments in, as such, delayed in getting orders out, bringing new products in, being able to pay our invoices if we are delayed in getting our receivables,” Nelson said.
Canada Post says mail and parcels will not be processed or delivered during the strike, and some post offices will be closed. It has also suspended service guarantees for items already in the postal network and will not accept new items until the labour disruption is over.
Additionally, many of Canada’s major banks say anyone who receives statements and bills through the mail can access those documents or make payments on the bank’s website.
Ruhee Ismail-Teja, the vice-president of policy and external affairs at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, says 60 per cent of businesses have cost-related concerns at the top of mind, which grows to 77 per cent for small businesses.
She tells CityNews the strike is now an additional challenge businesses in the city have to deal with, especially in an already uncertain economic period.
“Many of them are struggling with several rising cost concerns, supply-chain disruptions have continued, we’ve seen de minimis tariffs change down in the States,” Ismail-Teja said.
Meanwhile, Nelson says, “It’s a little unpredictable and it’s a little unnerving.”
“We’re only a couple of years into this, so for us that’s huge for us to have that setback.”
