Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
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.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
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.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
When Speaker Greg Fergus tossed out Pierre Poilievre from the House last week, "those of us who have experience as parliamentarians simply couldn't believe our eyes," writes former NDP leader Tom Mulcair in his column for CTVNews.ca
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.