It’s been almost two weeks since Darren Solomon had a working fridge. The appliance’s compressor conked out on Nov. 26 and he’s been waiting for a replacement part ever since.
The supplier he spoke with last month said the company typically receives LG components within a day.
“Day 1 passes, nothing. Day 2 passes, nothing. Day 3 passes, nothing.”
The service company could not even provide him with a tracking number, said Solomon, who lives with his family in Richmond Hill, Ont.
“They said, ‘It’s the Canada Post strike.’”
The delay has forced the Solomons to throw out food and pay for takeout almost daily.
“We have someone in the house with an eating disorder, and this has totally broken their routine. It’s really thrown them off,” said Solomon.
“It’s frustrating and it’s infuriating.”
As delivery backlogs build along with holiday angst, wait times and shipping rates continue to grow for consumers and businesses dealing with the fallout from the Canada Post work stoppage.
The Crown corporation’s shutdown meant that millions of Canadians who receive or send parcels via Canada Post in the lead-up to Christmas have had to turn elsewhere.
In the weeks leading up to Dec. 25, Canada Post typically receives close to double its daily parcel volume.
The Crown corporation says it handled 296 million parcels over the course of 2023, or nearly 811,000 per day, making up 29 per cent of the parcel market. That’s a big hole for private operators to plug.
The spillover to other shipping companies has proven too much for many to bear.
Purolator, UPS, FedEx and Canpar Express are among the major carriers to implement multi-day pauses on shipments from smaller courier companies, according to a client notice from one of them — eShipper — obtained by The Canadian Press. Those platforms handle shipments for tens of thousands of small businesses, which rely on the couriers to secure lower rates than the mom-and-pop shops could get individually.
The temporary halt has caused backlogs throughout the delivery chain.
“We’re actually refusing business,” said Timothy Byrnes, director of parcel delivery firm Jet Worldwide. “You get double the volume, but four times the problems.”
FedEx has also introduced a temporary limit of five packages per drop-off at its retail locations and launched a new late-night shift at some hubs to increase sorting capacity, the company said in an email.
With delivery demand surging, consumers and small businesses have little choice other than to opt for a pricier carrier and endure delays or hold off on sending packages altogether.