You can expect to see some mail in your mailboxes again, but not on a regular schedule

A Canada Post mailbox is pictured in Richmond, B.C. on Friday, Sept. 26, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

With the Thanksgiving long weekend over, Canadians can expect to see some mail moving in their mailboxes again, but not on a regular schedule.

That’s because the union representing Canada Post workers has shifted its strike action to rotating stoppages, which started on Saturday.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), which represents 55,000 workers, says the move is aimed at minimizing disruptions as negotiations with Canada Post continue.

The national postal service says it’s encouraging news, but Canadians should still expect uncertainties, delays and backlog.

As of Tuesday, CUPW has been holding rotating strikes in Dawson Creek, B.C., Fort St. John, B.C. and St. Anthony, N.L. which started on Saturday, Oct. 11. Meanwhile, the rotating strike activity has ended in Timmins, Ont.

Mail and parcels will not be delivered or picked up in locations where there are rotating strikes. Once the strike is over and operations resume in a given location, the delivery of mail and parcels will begin again as quickly as possible, the union said.

Jim Gallant, Canadian Union of Postal Workers negotiator, told CTV News Channel on Sunday that the strike hasn’t ended, it’s just changed.

“It makes it so the country can get to see what the strike touches, what the cuts and service touch,” he said.

Gallant called Canada Post’s latest offer a “twin brother or sister to their offer in May,” which 70 per cent of workers at the time rejected, and with very small changes that are “poison pills to the workers.”

“Now they’re going to close offices and cut 10,000 jobs,” he said. “We need a stop to this. … This is a service Canadians need. The big communities help the small communities, and the small communities will be left with no service if we don’t fight this.”

Letter courier with Canada Post Lorraine Muller told CTV News Channel on Saturday that employees will continue to go into work as if everything is normal, and but that they don’t know which local will go on strike from one day to the next.

“For us, it will be a spur of the moment thing,” she said.

She said there’s been “unsolid ground” for the last two years for postal workers, because they haven’t had any security of knowing what’s happening, on top of big and small changes. These include having a small depot getting absorbed by a bigger one, to being told not to personalize anything at work.

“It makes you feel like you don’t have a human connection to the workplace or your colleagues,” she said. “The new system is kind of designed that way.”

In a news release, Canada Post welcomed back its employees, but said rotating strikes challenge the company’s ability to provide reliable service. All service guarantees will be suspended as a result.

The countrywide strike started on Sept. 25, hours after the government announced changes to the postal service, including an end to door-to-door mail delivery for nearly all Canadian households within the next decade.

With files from The Canadian Press