Canada Post strike leaves small businesses scrambling for alternatives

For many small businesses across the nation, Canada Post serves as an affordable way to get their products out the door and delivered to their customers. But with the public service currently on strike, many are now looking for alternatives.

After the last strike, small business owners began exploring new ways they could move their products. And with the lingering effects of tariffs, many of them are now limited to in-person sales to make ends meet.

Canada Post workers walked off the job Thursday evening, marking the second postal strike since last December. And for some small business owners, another blow in what has been a tough year.

“Right now, with the strike earlier this year and then this one, it stops Canadian business. And then the tariffs completely stops international business. So it affects me majorly because I have to shift the way I sell completely — like a full 180,” said Mason Drake, a small business owner in Hamilton.

Typically, Canada Post offers affordable shipping rates and is the backbone for many small businesses looking to save cost on delivery – but the events of the past year have left some looking for new ways to operate.

“More physical, just get out there and get people to see us because I’m advertising to a completely different market and I’m just trying to get this market to adapt to us … it’s a slow move, it’s a painful move, but it works,” said Drake.

“It’s rough. There’s Stallion, it’s different — you weigh your own package and then you print your own [label]. And there’s DHL. so I’m just looking into those right now,” said Crystal Stankovic, another small business owner in Hamilton.

The federal government says it wants to eliminate home delivery as part of a number of reforms aimed at stabilizing the Crown corporation, which is hemorrhaging an estimated $10 million per day.

“Short term, this is gonna cause a great deal of pressure, including to small business owners … in the long term, though, this will make everybody, including Canada Post workers, better off,” said Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has called the reforms an attack by the federal government.

“It becomes tough when it’s — I believe in workers’ rights. But when it’s involved with the government it gets a little dicey — but yeah, I stand behind them, it is what it is, you know,” said Drake.

The last time Canada’s postal workers walked off the job was last year during the busy holiday season. For 32 days, they delivered no mail until the Canada Industrial Relations Board stepped in and ordered them back to work.

WATCH MORE: Canada Post workers walk off job again – how the strike impacts you