Canada Post strike is ‘highly disrespectful of Canadians’: minister

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said Canada Post and its workers' union are 'still very far apart,' as a nationwide mail strike nears its three-week mark.

As the Canada Post strike nears the three-week mark, the federal labour minister called the nationwide mail stoppage “highly disrespectful” of Canadians.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday, Steven MacKinnon said he has been in regular contact with special mediator, Peter Simpson, to see where both parties stand after mediated talks were temporarily suspended last week.

“I’ve been in daily discussions with … the mediator who is shuttling between the parties to see if there is a reasonable prospect that mediation, if it resumes, it will succeed. He has not yet given me that advice,” MacKinnon said.

“The parties are still very far apart, and that is in my view, among other things, highly disrespectful of Canadians who are suffering through this work stoppage, small businesses, people in rural and remote communities who rely on Canada Post’s services and these parties have to knuckle down and get the work done.”

By Wednesday, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business had estimated that the postal strike, which began on Nov. 15, would have cost small- and medium-sized businesses more than $1 billion.

As the strike continues, the federal government has been urged by some, including the CFIB and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, to step in.

MacKinnon has so far resisted those calls and reiterated on Wednesday that he’s “not contemplating an intervention.”

“As I’ve explained before, these are negotiations that have to be concluded between the parties, they rest on fundamental issues that separate these two parties.”