Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Canadians and small businesses sending parcels this holiday season may be surprised to see a steep surcharge on domestic shipping due to the high price of diesel.
One small business owner from Surrey, B.C. said she was shocked by the cost of a recent shipment with Canada Post.
Deb Baldry creates reusable face masks and bags made out of sustainably sourced material such as cork for her business, Deb's Bags.
While Baldry is satisfied with Canada Post as a service, she said "it's the costs associated with it, it's shocking and all of us makers are trying to find something else we can do."
This week, Baldry shipped a $75 bag for $18.97, including a fuel surcharge of $5.12.
The Canadian postal service's package surcharge rose to nearly 40 per cent last week on domestic parcels and fell slightly to 37 per cent this week.
The fuel-based surcharge has been a standard company practice for more than 20 years and is based on the average price of diesel as measured by Kalibrate Technologies Ltd., said Phil Rogers, spokesman for Canada Post in an emailed statement.
"Fuel surcharges are applied year-round as a standard industry practice for parcel shippers," he said.
Baldry is among the many who started operating her small business full-time during the pandemic.
Rogers said that Canada Post services thousands of small businesses across Canada that saw a particular spike in e-commerce after the pandemic.
"We expect that to continue this holiday season," he said.
However, Baldry said she has shifted her business model to accommodate for the postal fees, opting to sell the majority of her merchandise at local markets rather than online.
"I actually dread when people purchase things from my website," said Baldry.
Despite the higher-than-normal prices, Canada Post anticipates a busy holiday season as Rogers said the postal service has hired 4,500 additional staff and 1,550 more vehicles to accommodate the holiday shipping surge.
Deadlines for domestic shipping vary on priority, but regular parcels shipped in Canada should be sent between Dec. 9 and 19 to arrive in time for Christmas.
Even sooner is the deadline to ship internationally, which varies depending on the country.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2022.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.