Canada’s Postal Strike Hits Christmas Deliveries in Remote Communities

Every Christmas season, Elizabeth Teasdale sets aside an entire room in her house on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia to store presents for her family’s large holiday gathering. By now, 20 to 30 packages should be stashed away.

This week there were two.

It has not been the most wonderful time of the year.

A strike by more than 50,000 postal workers in Canada is now in its fourth week, threatening to leave empty spaces under many Christmas trees.

After nearly a month without mail, Steven MacKinnon, the federal labor minister, said Friday that he had asked the independent Canada Industrial Relations Board to order strikers back to work if it determines the two sides are at an impasse.

“Canadians are rightly fed up,” he told reporters, adding that service might return as early as next week.

A wide swath of Canadian residents and businesses has been affected. But the hardest hit have been those in remote communities like Ms. Teasdale’s town of Inverness, where Canada Post is the only delivery option. Even Amazon relies on it.

“We can use our sense of humor, call it a piece of our new reality,” Ms. Teasdale said. “We got around Covid and will get around this. It is what it is, I guess.”