Frustration grows among Ottawa small business owners as Canada Post strike lingers on

My Baby Shoppe employee monitoring online sales amidst slowing shopping season, Saturday Dec. 14, 2024 (Josh Marano, CTV News Ottawa)

As the Canada Post strike entered its fourth week on Friday, some Ottawa small businesses are still feeling the effects.

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Without postal workers, mail and package deliveries across the country have been halted. The Canada Industrial Relations Board may decide as early as next week on whether to force staff back to work but for now, many businesses aren't able to capitalize on the pivotal holiday shopping season.

My Baby Shoppe on Bank Street says they made the switch away from Canada Post in the early days of the strike to UPS, but higher shipping costs and the continued delays in shipments have led to a 15 per cent drop in sales.

"We'll get orders and sometimes, even the shipping costs when we go to buy the shipping label have jumped like $10, $20 in some cases," said store manager Lauryn Postma.

“We can't absorb that cost and when we reach out to the customer, they just want a refund. They don't want the order anymore because shipping is so high."

For Postma, she says it was convenient with a Canada Post location just around the corner to walk shipments to the carrier. Now with how busy other carriers are, it’s harder to get packages out.

"It's just been like such a longer process. It's not as easy as just buying a label and then sticking it on, sending it on its way," Postma said.

"We used to have UPS come pick it up, but because they're so busy now, they're not able to come pick up our packages."

Across the city at Copper Alley Gift Boutique in Westboro, owner Lefa Bowerman says her store also made the switch from Canada Post once the strike began to Canpar Express.

"We can't get any packages out right now, so we didn't really have much of a choice," she said.

Shipping most of her items in from across the country proved to be a problem with some of her jewellery still sitting in a Canada Post warehouse.

Canada Post employees could be back to work early next week if the Canada Industrial Relations Board puts a temporary end to the strike after Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said he believes the negotiations are not working. If they’re forced to resume, staff will continue to work under the current collective agreement until May 22, 2025.

While businesses like My Shoppe Baby and Copper Alley Gift Boutique moved away from Canada Post, they hope a pause in the strike will help expedite their shipments but don’t see how it will be possible to get products to customers before Christmas Day.

"I don't know if it would help just because they're so far backed up now that I don't know if our orders would make it in time for Christmas, we might still just have to use UPS and keep driving to their place for dropping off," Postma said.

The holiday season is supposed to be the most profitable time of the year for local shops, but with the strike and new tax cut in effect, Postma says it’s been difficult to keep up.

"It's definitely been a process. We had to go through all our product’s kind of one by one, make sure everything was going to be okay for the tax break,” she said.

"So far for Christmas, our season has been the slowest it's been."