Saturday January 4, 2025 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Canada Post has advised its business customers that the postal delivery corporation continues to “stabilize its operations and work towards full service levels”.
That came out in a statement to business customers on December 30, just ahead of the New Year break. Canada Post was closed mid-week on Wednesday January 1 (no collection or delivery operations).
The first full week of operations in 2025 starts on January 6 after this weekend.
“We recognize the urgency to deliver the items already in our network and move new items that we receive. We know your business is relying on us to deliver,” said Canada Post in their December 30 message to businesses.
Restoration timeline:
Few businesses expected immediate postal service recovery after postal workers ended their strike on December 17. Especially given that the (backlogged) load of parcels in the holiday season.

But at year-end operations were still not quite back up to speed. As of December 30:
- Date-specific Neighbourhood Mail is not currently available
- On-time service guarantees remain suspended.
Business impacts:
Many businesses coped without Canada Post services during the month-long postal workers strike, but many businesses were already less reliant on Canada Post service.
There has been a continued shift to business being done digitally and with the use of couriers and other delivery systems.
The small business sector that relies on Canada Post for delivery of online sales has probably seen the biggest impact during this recent strike — in particular having impact on holiday season sales. This could push even more businesses away from using Canada Post. Or it might see businesses demanding better services from Canada Post.
Canada Post will need to evaluate its overall role in the delivery sector in Canada.
New commercial mail intake:
“New commercial volumes are being inducted and pickups are under way,” says Canada Post. They continue to deliver items that were held in their network during the strike; new volumes are being processed.
Rural and remote volumes:
“Employees are making their best effort to stabilize delivery operations in rural and remote areas,” said Canada Post on December 30.
“The accumulated volumes are now being prepared for delivery. For items being transported over longer distances, delays should be expected into early January given the significant volume. We will share more details in the coming days on how we are progressing in these areas.” the corporation said.
Domestic package progress:
Progress has been made with the processing and delivery of domestic packages. “As we stabilize our integrated network of processing plants, depots and post offices nationally, we expect to return to full service levels in early January,” says Canada Post.
Mail:
We continue to work through a large volume of Neighbourhood Mail and Transaction Mail. A significant portion of Transaction Mail has been processed; however, service standards will continue to be affected in the short-term due to the significant volume of both existing and new mail.
Mail and parcels are accepted at the Canada Post plants, depots and commercial deposit centres (CDCs). Both scheduled pickups and on-demand pickups are now available.
- Post offices and retail outlets are accepting new parcels, mail and returns.
- Date-specific Neighbourhood Mail is not currently available.
- All return labels created on or after October 15 will remain valid for up to 45 days.
International:
New international mail and parcels are being accepted.
“We have been processing heavy volumes since December 23 and Canadians should expect delays into early 2025 for international mail and parcels,” says Canada Post.
Other timelines:
On-time service guarantees remain suspended as operations continue to stabilize.
===== RELATED:
- Canada Post: all backlogged parcels now in the system (December 21, 2024)
- Parcels and mail start rolling Dec 19 with Canada Post (December 18, 2024)
- Canada Post service resumes Dec 17 with workers back on the job (December 17, 2024)
- Canada Post labour dispute is about to end (December 13, 2024)
- Canada Post worker strike highlights corporate slack (November 30, 2024)
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