“As of November 19, 2024, approximately 85,000 passports printed and ready to be sent are held by Service Canada,” a Service Canada spokesperson told Noovo Info on Wednesday. “These passports will be shipped as soon as postal service resumes.”
Enough to cause stress for those who are waiting for their precious document before leaving on a trip. The solution? “Contact the Passport Program at 1-800-567-6868, or go to a Service Canada Center to request that their passport be transferred to one of the 60 Service Canada offices offering pick-up service,” says spokesperson Maja Stefanovska.
But here it is, if your passport renewal request was submitted just before the start of the lockdown at Canada Post, i.e. between November 8 and November 15, this request may not have been processed. “Service Canada will not be able to process these requests until postal services resume,” we warn.
SEE ALSO | Canada Post strike: Quebecers no longer receive their checks
Approximately 55,000 employees represented by the Postal Workers Union walked off the job last Friday.
The union is demanding cumulative wage increases of 24% over four years, while Canada Post has proposed 11.5%. Other issues in dispute include job security, benefits and contract work delivering packages on weekends.
Negotiations between Canada Post and its unionized employees, which began in November 2023, are taking place as the federal delivery service faces an unprecedented financial crisis.
During the first half of 2024, Canada Post lost almost half a billion dollars. It reported losses of $3 billion since 2018 as Canadians sent fewer letters, while competitors took away even more share of the parcel market.
The last work stoppage at the Postal Service took place in late October 2018, when employees conducted rotating strikes for 31 days. Previous postal strikes, in 2011 and 2018, ended when the federal government passed special back-to-work legislation.
With information from The Canadian Press.
