By BRENDAN MILLER on September 27, 2025.

Local postal workers picket outside the post office located along Spencer Street on Friday. They join nationwide job action taken by the CUPW following sweeping changes announced to Canada Post on Thursday.–NEWS PHOTOS BRENDAN MILLERbmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Holding signs reading “Save Door-To-Door” and “CUPW on Strike,” dozens of local postal workers are visible picketing in front of the postal office along Spencer Street, nearly a year after those same workers went on strike trying to reach a new collective agreement back on Nov. 15, 2024.

That strike was suspended Dec. 17 and postal workers were ordered back to work for the Holiday Season. Throughout 2025 the Canadian Union of Postal Workers says it has been actively working on negotiations to reach a deal on a new four-year collective agreement for workers.

However, talks turned sour Thursday after Minister of Public Works and Procurement Joël Lightbound announced sweeping changes to the Crown corporation that could affect full-time positions.

“It was very shocking,” said CUPW Local 776 president Ross Naroznick. “We were out on route, we were delivering mail, parcels as usual, then we got a phone call saying the Atlantic region walked out, and then after that our national office for that union said we’re going on a full strike.”

About 120 workers from Medicine Hat, Redcliff, Brooks and surrounding communities joined more than 55,000 across Canada, now picketing for more than just reaching a collective agreement deal; they say they are fighting to keep Canada Post alive.

“This is a decision made by the labour minister without the input of the public,” said Naroznick. “Canada Post belongs to the public, it’s a public service.”

He says the union has provided the Crown corporation with lucrative ideas to help turn its finances around, and also criticized Canada Post’s management for years of wasteful spending.

“We’re pissed off,” he said, “People are still recovering financially from the previous strikeout and right now we’re just frustrated. It’s constantly just the government, the people with the money, against Canadians, against workers.”

Naroznick says striking workers hope to send a clear message to Canadians they are fighting to keep the mail service alive.

“It’s about preserving and expanding Canada Post to be more profitable, to provide more services, it’s not necessarily just about workers, especially now, it’s about Canadians as well.”

Canada Post was set to table new offers to CUPW on Friday. Corporation spokesman Jon Hamilton confirmed in an interview with The Canadian Press that Lightbound’s announcement Thursday forced the Crown corporation to revise those proposals.

CUPW negotiator Jim Gallant says the union wasn’t necessarily shocked by the minister’s announcement, but was surprised by how far the overhaul went.

Canada Post said it welcomes the measures announced Thursday, which include expanding community mailboxes to four million more addresses and ending a moratorium on closing rural post offices.

Lightbound said Thursday the government is responding to a revenue crisis at Canada Post driven by the decline in letter mail and the Crown corporation’s small share of the parcel market.

CUPW on Friday called the federal government’s changes a “direct attack” on the future of the postal service.

“We’re not saying that Canada Post doesn’t have troubles,” Gallant said. “We’re just saying that these these are extreme ways to fix things – some things that don’t need to be fixed.”

CUPW said it was expecting the federal government to launch a mandate review for the postal service next month.

Gallant said that Ottawa opted instead to adopt wholesale the recommendations from William Kaplan, who was appointed by the feds to lead an industrial inquiry commission probe into the labour dispute and Canada Post’s finances earlier this year. That commission found the postal service was effectively insolvent.

The goal of the countrywide strike, Gallant said, is to get Canadians’ support for a full mandate review that’s open to witnesses from the public.

“We need the government to be honest with the Canadian public and walk this back,” he said.

Gallant also cast doubt on the estimated size of Canada Post’s daily losses, which the Crown corporation has pegged at $10 million amid an extended period of labour uncertainty.

The postal service has relied on federal bailouts to stay afloat in recent years.

Canada Post and CUPW have been in contract negotiations for nearly two years and have yet to reach an agreement on wages and other structural reforms to the postal service’s workforce.

Canada Post is completely shuttering operations during the strike, with a few exceptions – such as delivering pension cheques and social assistance like disability support payments.

No new mail will otherwise be accepted and Canada Post says items already in the postal service’s system will be held and delivered after the labour disruption ends.

— with files from The Canadian Press
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