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.'
A mail carrier says her out-of-pocket costs for delivering packages along her rural route have doubled because of the steep hike in gas prices and cost of living being experienced by many Canadians.
“The stress is exhausting,” said Jennifer Henson, a Calgary mother of two boys and one of 11,000 rural and suburban mail carriers delivering letters for Canada Post across the country.
“It's not just gas. The cost of living has skyrocketed,” Henson said. “I'm always wondering how to pay this bill and that bill and I'm no different than any working-class Canadian across the country.”
The 38-year-old said it used to cost her $60 to the fill the tank of her Ford Flex.
“Now it's costing me $125 to fill my tank every two days, so it's completely doubled.”
Canada Post's rural and suburban mail carriers don't get a red and white corporate truck and a gas card like their urban counterparts. So, along with being required to use a personal vehicle with a minimum cargo capacity of 1,415 litres, the rural carriers also cover the cost of gas, maintenance and insurance of their vehicle.
“I drive over 200 kilometres a day. We go through tires, oil change, a set of brakes a lot quicker than the average person,” Henson said,
She said the Crown corporation provides her with a $720 biweekly allowance with the help of the Canadian Revenue Agency to pay for those bills, but she said it hasn't been enough.
“I don't want to slam Canada Post, because if you talk to most carriers, whether they're urban or rural, we do love our jobs. I love my route. The countryside is relaxing. I've met amazing people,” said Henson, who has been a carrier for 16 years.
“But Canada Post has also increased their fuel surcharge, so when you go to the post office to mail something, you're paying more as a customer because of the fuel. That's not trickling down to us at all.”
She also said the CRA raised carriers' allowance by five cents a litre this year, but she “a few cents isn't doing a whole lot when a year ago gas was about $1 less.”
Statistics Canada said this week the annual inflation rate has skyrocketed to its highest level in nearly 40 years in May, fuelled by soaring gas prices.
The agency says its consumer price index in May rose 7.7 per cent compared to a year ago. It's the largest increase since January 1983.
Food prices for nearly everything in a grocery cart also grew by 9.7 per cent compared to a year ago.
Henson said the bill at the grocery store has also been a strain on her finances.
“My oldest son is 14 years old and my youngest will be 12 years old next month. They're growing and they eat more than most of my friends,” she said.
“When you go to the grocery store, it just blows my mind. How are people surviving?”
Anna Beale, president of the Calgary Local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, said Canada Post needs to increase the allowance for its rural workers.
“Canada Post is able to provide all kinds of things like Tim Hortons gift cards (to their workers),” said Beale. “Why not take that money instead and make it work somehow for rural drivers so that they can afford these gas prices?”
A spokesperson for Canada Post said in a email the mail carrier is adapting to increased costs across many of its operations.
“Fuel prices are in unprecedented territory and have impacted the entire industry,” said Phil Legault.
He said to address any additional or unforeseen expenses, rural and suburban mail carriers are entitled to a cost-of-living allowance.
“This is reviewed throughout the year and paid out as per the collective agreements,” Legault said.
“The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has requested that we discuss the matter, and we will continue to engage them on this issue.”
Along with the carriers, a vice president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture said any spike in inflation, as well as the cost of gas and diesel, hits rural Canadians the hardest.
“We don't have access to public transit so we certainly pay disproportionately more for fuel because we have to drive everywhere,” Keith Currie said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 24, 2022.
---
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
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.