American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer denied bail after being charged with killing Canadian couple
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Canada Post says it is adding additional staff and vehicles in anticipation of another busy holiday season amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
A spokesperson for Canada Post told CTVNews.ca in an email Saturday that the company “continues to ramp up for a busy peak holiday season as Canadians have become much more comfortable shopping online during the pandemic.”
The company said in 2020, during the two weeks ending on Christmas Eve, its employees delivered almost 20 million parcels to Canadians. A record 2.4 million of which were delivered on Dec. 21.
But, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and persistent global supply chain issues, should Canadians be worried about holiday package delivery delays?
Here’s a closer look at what’s going on.
David Soberman is a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
He told CTVNews.ca that ultimately, shipping companies like Canada Post are the “last link,” when it comes to the global supply chain and getting goods to consumers.
“Most of the problems in the supply chain are occurring at the retail level and further upstream,” he said during a telephone interview on Saturday.
Beyond ramping up their capacity to deal with an influx of packages during the holiday season, Soberman said there’s not much else shipping companies can do to mitigate these issues for consumers.
He said customers should make sure they check the estimated delivery date listed online by retailers, to ensure their holiday gifts will arrive on time.
However, Soberman cautioned that some specific, popular items might be especially hard to find this year.
“What someone’s going to do if they go into Canadian Tire and they can’t find something – they’re going to start to look on Amazon.ca, or they’ll maybe they’ll look on Walmart.ca,” he said. “And then they’ll start looking on other sites.”
He said if everyone looking for the same item does the same, “eventually you won’t be able to get it.”
“And that’s what’s going to happen with some of the more popular items – certain toys, certain board games, certain electronics, etc.,” he said.
Consumers should try to get their holiday shopping done as early as possible, Soberman said, and should have back-up gift ideas for their loved ones, in case the item they want is unavailable.
Soberman also pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying if new variants are detected in Canada, or the pandemic? worsens, some areas could see new lockdowns or restrictions, which could impede holiday shopping.
“The sooner you get your shopping done the better,” he said.
Canada Post said it encourages customers to “take the time and do their research online with retailers to understand the availability of certain items and ensure they aren’t disappointed.”
The company has also released a schedule for sending holiday cards and packages. The dates vary depending on what you are sending and where.
The deadline to send a package by regular mail to an address in Canada is Dec. 9, while customers have until Dec. 21 to ship priority packages within Canada.
The deadline to send a card nationally is Dec. 17.
The full details, including deadlines to send packages internationally can be found here.
Canada Post said the company is also taking several measures to keep up with the busy holiday season.
The company said it is hiring 4,200 additional seasonal staff across the country and is adding 1,400 more vehicles to its fleet.
Canada Post is also “leveraging new sortation capacity” recently added in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Kitchener, Montreal and Moncton.
The company said it is also adding “temporary parcel pickup locations” in major urban centres and secondary markets to “ease congestion and lineups for holiday parcel pickup at some of our busier post offices.”
In an email to CTVNews.ca, a spokesperson for UPS didn't note any shipping delay concerns, but said the company's "dedicated employees make UPS well-equipped to handle the challenges of the pandemic and the peak holiday season."
The company said by the end of next year, it will have also added 49 new aircraft to its fleet since 2017, and said it will have added two million square feet of automated facilities by the end of the year. According to UPS, almost 90 per cent of its packages will flow through these automated facilities.
UPS said the investments in additional air and ground capacity and technology means it can process about 130,000 more pieces of mail per hour than last year.
In a statement emailed to CTVNews.ca, James Anderson a spokesperson for FedEx, said the company is projecting peak shipping volumes will be up more than 10 per cent year-over-year, adding that FedEx has been “preparing for the influx of packages for months in advance of an unprecedented holiday season.”
He said globally, the average transit time at FedEx Express is still less than two days, and less than two and a half days at FedEx Ground.
“We’ve added a lot of capacity to move international air trade, especially the high value sector of the global economy,” Anderson said. “Healthcare is a primary component.”
Anderson said as businesses work to circumvent some of the “ocean and surface transportation challenges,” FedEx continues to see “strong demand for movement of high value goods via air cargo in our FedEx Express network.”
Anderson said since June 2020, FedEx Express Canada has increased its workforce from 7,100 to more than 13,200, and has added nearly 300,000 square feet of sorting capacity space in key markets across the country.
The company has also expanded its residential delivery window by an additional four hours each day, Anderson said, and has added an additional Boeing 757 and three ATR-72s aircraft to its domestic fleet.
CTVNews.ca also reached out to Amazon to determine if Canadian customers can expect to see shipping delays, but did not hear back by time of publication.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc says he plans to run in the next election as a candidate under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's leadership, amid questions about his rumoured interest in succeeding his longtime friend for the top job.
A male columnist has apologized for a cringeworthy moment during former University of Iowa superstar and college basketball’s highest scorer Caitlin Clark’s first news conference as an Indiana Fever player.
Health Canada will change its longstanding policy restricting gay and bisexual men from donating to sperm banks in Canada, CTV News has learned. The federal health agency has adopted a revised directive removing the ban on gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, effective May 8.
The United States has vetoed a widely backed UN resolution that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for the state of Palestine.
Bayer announced Thursday it is recalling two lots of its hydraSense Baby Nasal Care Easydose due to a potential contamination.
Technology from the 19th century has been brought out of retirement at a Newfoundland gardening store, as staff look for all the help they can get to fill orders during a busy season.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
A group of suspects that allegedly defrauded seniors across Ontario and other parts of Canada using a so-called emergency grandparent scam appear to have ties to 'Italian traditional organized crime,' according to an investigator involved in the OPP-led probe.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.
While many people choose to keep their medical appointments private, four longtime friends decided to undergo vasectomies as a group in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.