The Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ latest work stoppage – as of this writing into Day 30, with a back-to-work instruction from the CIRB for next week – has seriously upset Canadians dependent on mail delivery services and has disrupted small businesses across Canada reliant on Canada Post for parcel delivery. And typically, to bring maximum pressure on the poor beleaguered crown corporation, CUPW has callously saved their collective action until the most critical time – Christmas. The victim of these withdrawn mail and delivery services of this monopolistic monolith is the innocent customer with no options, in particular, small businesses and their thousands of customers. Even with back-to-work orders, it’s too late for this year.

To those blithely independent of postal services, both mail and parcel, this strike is a minor inconvenience, if noticed at all. But for innocent reliant Canadian users of Canada Post services, this is more than a little inconvenient. It is stressful and affects their livelihoods. 

Technological Change 

Even as letter mail becomes rapidly as irrelevant as buggy whips, some segments of society still depend on it for critical business transactions: think technologically challenged seniors and their pension cheques. These members of our society are not set up for e-bill notification, for direct deposit and subsequent on-line bill payment, and in the absence of Canada Post mail services, they are very vulnerable. But this too is fast becoming a thing of the past with this shrinking cadre of the populous and as people scramble to take care of their vulnerable parents and others.

The bygone days’ practice of sending Christmas Cards to family and friends has shrunk to a quaint anachronism, almost as foreign to younger people as rotary dial telephones. Christmas Cards are almost a cultural artifact, and while e-cards are available, few people avail themselves of the technology, too busy with other things, lord knows what. And something of our social fabric is lost.

While electronic measures may have largely replaced ‘snail mail’, parcel service is another matter. Until teletransportation is invented, we still need our packages physically delivered.

Canada Post does not have a monopoly on parcel delivery service as it does physical mail but it is nevertheless the #1 shipping company in the country, relied upon by millions of small business operators, not to mention ordinary people now frustrated to send a Christmas present to Gramma in Gravenhurst. 

And this includes the thousands of small business owners called authors. 

Effect on Indie Authors

Doug Jordan is an indie author and his company, AFS Publishing, is a self-publishing business. AFSP’s printing provider, the print-on-demand Lulu Press, is a world-wide operator and uses many different shipping companies to get its orders to customers; but in Canada Lulu mostly relies on Canada Post. We at AFS Publishing determined weeks ago it had become impractical to place orders with Lulu for more inventory with this Canada Post uncertainty and delays. And now as each day the strike is not resolved the increasing likelihood will be that these Christmas sales and these hopes will be dashed.

We keep a small inventory of our books to deliver to customers locally but for customers further afield we rely on Canada Post to trans-ship our books. 

Using Canada Post’s postal services imbedded in Shoppers Drug Mart or Rexall Drugs stores has been a very convenient service, but with this postal strike we have abandoned plans to promote our books to our publics this Christmas year. One wonders whether some private sector organization might buy out these embedded kiosks, and Purolator, and circumvent Canada Post altogether.

Canadian Authors Jigsaw Puzzle Project

I spear-headed the Canadian Authors Association initiative to promote its members’ books through an innovative idea of rendering the covers in an attractive Jigsaw puzzle. (See if you can find my book in the puzzle.) 

The producer of the puzzle chosen for this project, The Occurrence, is a family business operating out of a small facility and distribution centre in Merrickville, Ontario. The Occurrence had a contract with Canada Post as its primary shipper. We at Canadian Authors and The Occurrence were all geared up to launch our puzzle by mid-November, just in time for Christmas buying – the most likely time of year for jigsaw puzzle sales. CUPW has given us a serious setback. It isn’t just lost revenue we have suffered, it is the opportunity to promote Canadian Authors and our members’ books. 

We have been scrambling to find other service providers to ship these puzzles. Even if alternate delivery services were to be found, their capacity to fill the void left by Canada Post cannot quickly be expanded, especially at this peak demand time for Christmas deliveries.

Still, hope springs eternal. We in the Ottawa region could pop down to Merrickville to pick up puzzles at the factory, but the rest of the country will have to wait until this CUPW strike is over, maybe in January. But, jigsaw puzzlers, like readers, are in the market for their fix throughout the year. 

Silver Lining

For every disappointment there may be a silver lining: this strike may result in the overhaul of the cumbersome and unreliable parcel and even mail delivery system in Canada. With expansion of delivery services, and even the breakup and privatization of Canada Post itself we small business operators will not be so vulnerable again to this monopolistic crown corporation and its self-serving unions. The sooner this dinosaur corporation becomes extinct the better.

Doug Jordan, reporting to you from Kanata

© Douglas Jordan & AFS Publishing All rights reserved. No part of these blogs and newsletters may be reproduced without the express permission of the author and/or the publisher, except upon payment of a small royalty, 5¢.