Looming Canada Post labour disruption could impact Medicine Hat businesses

The union announced earlier this week that its members voted overwhelmingly to support a strike if a deal could not be reached at the bargaining table.

Canada Post has been a staple for delivery services in the country since Canada’s confederation.

But its utilization has shrunk since as technology advances, less letter mail is sent and other companies take its market share away.

Scott Dent, owner at The Board House in Medicine Hat, does a lot of online shipments through his store, and utilizes a variety of companies.

“We have a program called ClickShip, and it usually gives us the best rate. We look on there to see what rate we can get, and then we determine it that way,” Dent said.

“It’s pretty seamless. It’s really nice actually.”

Dent said a lot of the time Canada Post is more expensive than other courier options, but can also be the only option to some rural areas, and any deliveries to post office boxes.

Weddingstar, a popular but mostly online retailer located just outside of Medicine Hat, uses Canada Post in a limited capacity, according to CEO Rick Brink.

“Most of our shipments are going through other couriers. We ship around the world and we have some good rates that ship into the U.S. and that makes it across Canada,” Brink said.

“Personally as a company, they’ll have little effect on us.”

Brink does see a work stoppage by Canada Post having stronger implications for others.

“Consumers bringing shipments in from the U.S., more than likely a lot of them do come through Canada Post, through the U.S. mail that gets transferred to Canada Post, they’re probably going to see a big effect on shipments,” Brink said.

“Then you’ve got the consumers who are shipping overseas, Christmas gifts and things like that, and a lot of them are using Canada Post and they would courier.”

“A big effect to the consumers, I would say.”

With Weddingstar being a volume shipper, they have locked in contracts for a lot of their shipping costs.

For a place like The Boarding Shop seeing a price increase at the other couriers if demand increases could be a potential concern.

“That’d be interesting to see what happens with that, if they do raise prices. I guess, if they’re so busy, they might have to. Just to keep things going for them,” Dent said.

“That would be tough, especially with online time coming up, Christmas, and it’s crunch time for retailers. The next two months are critical to us.”

The timing of the potential job action couldn’t be worse for those looking to have goods shipped to their home, with a lot of cyber sales and mail to be delivered heading into the Christmas season.

by Jesse Gill

Looming Canada Post labour disruption could impact Medicine Hat businesses

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