After a month-long strike, Canada Post is continuing to ramp up its operations and the postal service expects that most of its backlog of deliveries will be cleared before Christmas.
Canada Post workers returned to the job on Tuesday after they were ordered by the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to end the countrywide strike.
The Crown corporation said its network became fully operational on Wednesday afternoon.
“Canada Post has processed the parcels held in the postal system during the strike, with all these items now flowing through our network or delivered,” the national mail carrier said in an update on Friday.
“We expect a significant portion of these items to be delivered before Christmas.”
Postal workers will be making deliveries this weekend in some select cities, the company said.
It will begin accepting new international mail on Monday.
Despite the ramp-up in operations, the postal service is warning of delays that could continue into early next year, but expects to return to “full-service levels and normal delivery standards in early January.”
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Post offices will be closed on statutory holidays: Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
With Christmas approaching, Canada Post is also prioritizing letters mailed to Santa Claus.
Canada Post said on Wednesday that all letters mailed to Santa by Dec. 23 will be prioritized for direct delivery.
The Santa Letter Program has been part of Canada Post’s operations for 40 years and in 2023 delivered some 14 million letters to the North Pole.
More than 55,000 postal workers went on strike on Nov. 15. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers was seeking wage increases, better pensions and improved health benefits.
On Dec. 15, the CIRB, upon a request from Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, ordered workers back to work after it determined that Canada Post and CUPW were unlikely to reach a deal by the end of the year.
CUPW has called the decision “disappointing,” and is challenging the government intervention to end the strike.
Under the CIRB order, the terms of the existing collective agreements will be extended until May 2025. Canada Post will also offer a wage increase of five per cent for employees, which was proposed in the company’s last offer.
In a statement on Friday, the union said it “will be looking to file a national grievance on numerous violations of the collective agreement” after Dec. 17.
“We are hearing about multiple situations that could constitute violations of the collective agreement and are engaging with CPC at the national level to sort this all out,” it said.
