Coming up on Saturday, July 2, to a post office near you, may or may not be a postal strike, and remarkably, hardly anyone outside of Canada Post or the publishing industry seems to even know about it.
What this labour dispute may come down to is a showdown about the future and relevancy of the Canada Post Corporation in this day and age of the Internet and social media, where everyone can be connected every day, all day, virtually anywhere in Canada or in the world.
With emails, texting, Facebook posts and tweeting, not to mention any of a dozen other ways to send out messages to computers or mobile devices, is Canada Post still of any relevance to Canadians today?
Of course they are, but like many other businesses and services today, they are adjusting to the new realities of an electronically-connected world, with part of their new service now being to deliver the items people buy from on-line shopping sites.
A dismantling of door-to-door postal delivery was halted mid-stream when the Liberals took over the federal government from the Conservatives. For those communities who had already lost the service, it was too little too late, but in Weyburn, those homes which were on the verge of losing their delivery now still receive that service.
In some ways, the stoppage of this process was more political posturing than anything, because it will reach the point eventually where even the Liberals will see that it is inevitable, considering the huge drop in postal volumes from the “good old days” when postal services were crucial to every Canadian to stay in touch with each other.
This current labour dispute is bringing forward the issues of changing the form and quality of postal service that is more modern and relevant to the needs of Canadians today. In part, the Canadian public ought to have some say in what service they do want. They do still get bills and invoices via mail, official notices come by registered mail, and of course parcels from on-line shopping get delivered this way, along with private services like couriers.
Should Canada Post be downgraded to a parcel delivery service? More and more companies are going with paperless invoicing with electronic bills, and this too will impact Canada Post. The discussion on this venerable service’s future really should be a separate one from a contract dispute, but unfortunately the timing of this pending strike is bringing the discussion to the fore — so let’s figure it out and make it the new Canada Post that will live on and serve the current and coming generations of Canadians. — Greg Nikkel
