News releases

We understand the important role Canada Post plays in delivering the holidays for Canadians, and in supporting Canadian online retailers to be successful, especially at this time of year. While uneven backlogs continue to pose a challenge, we are processing and delivering mail and parcels across the country and have taken every extra effort to get caught up as quickly as possible.

Status of operations

Lettermail

We are current on holiday Lettermail processing and delivery and expect that to continue through Christmas.

Parcels

Incoming holiday parcel volumes continue to be down over 2017, and significantly below projections for this year. As a result, our fully-enacted holiday delivery plans, which were built to deliver the projected double-digit parcel growth from online shopping this holiday season, continue to help our operations catch up. With the additional resources and a strong weekend, Canada Post delivered almost 4 million parcels across the country from Friday, December 14 to Monday, December 17.

Understanding the importance of online holiday shopping to Canadians and Canadian retailers, it remains our priority to deliver as much as possible before Christmas. Backlogs have been reduced, but remain uneven in parts of the country. With continued progress, we are now in a position to restore our normal holiday delivery service guarantees for much of the country. This means Canadians can expect normal holiday delivery timelines for parcels. The exception remains items headed to or departing Vancouver as backlogs there continue to cause additional delays.

We encourage Canadians to continue to shop online as we believe with our recent progress, we will see parcels reaching homes in time for Christmas in most parts of the country. When shopping online, please read the shipping details posted by the retailer to understand time commitments and available options.

With our holiday delivery plans, employees are being offered voluntary overtime and almost 4,000 additional seasonal employees have been brought on to provide much needed processing and delivery support. We’ve also bolstered our fleet with almost 2,000 additional vehicles to help with deliveries and moving product through the network. We also continue to closely monitor the weather across the country as every delivery day is important.

International incoming

International posts began to send items to Canada on November 27. The international volumes entering the country continue to be significantly less than expected. Processing lower incoming volumes, combined with the time lag for items to arrive in Canada, has helped us to make progress. With reduced international volumes and our continued work in partnership with the Canadian Border Services Agency, we expect to be current on International items in early January.

Service guarantee

On November 13, 2018 Canada Post suspended service delivery guarantees due to the backlogs caused by ongoing strike activity.

With continued strong delivery and reduced incoming parcel volumes, we are now in a position to restore our normal holiday delivery service guarantees for much of the country. This means Canadians can expect normal holiday delivery timelines for parcels. The exception remains items headed to or departing Vancouver as backlogs there continue to cause additional delays.

We thank our customers for their patience and understanding and will continue to provide regular updates on the status of our operations.