Senate passes bill ordering end to postal strikes
With no amendments from senators, services expected to be restored by noon today
OTTAWA — The Senate has passed legislation ordering an end to rotating strikes by postal workers across the country. That means all postal services will likely be back up and running by noon Tuesday.
Earlier it was thought that the upper house might not go along with the government’s rush to get mail moving again during the postal service’s busiest holiday season.
Some independent senators argued that because it curtailed postal workers’ right to strike, the bill was an unconstitutional violation of their right to freedom of association and expression.
And independent Sen. Murray Sinclair, a former judge, was poised to propose an amendment that would keep the legislation from kicking in for at least seven days after it receives royal assent.
The Liberal government proposed that the bill go into effect at noon the day following royal assent — as early as Tuesday if the Senate passed it Monday without amendments.
A Senate amendment to the bill would have caused at least another day’s delay, requiring the bill to go back to the House of Commons, where MPs would have to decide whether to accept or reject the change and then ship the bill back to the Senate.
Bill C-89 was debated in the upper chamber on Saturday after the Liberal government fasttracked the legislation through the House of Commons.
But despite an initial plan to continue debate — and possibly hold a vote — on Sunday, senators chose instead to give themselves an extra day to digest hours of witness testimony on the labour dispute.
In the meantime, Labour Minister Patti Hajdu said Monday that a special mediator the government appointed to try to bridge the gap between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has concluded his work and the two sides are no longer negotiating.
Negotiations have been underway for nearly a year but the dispute escalated when CUPW members launched rotating strikes Oct. 22.
Those walkouts have led to backlogs of mail and parcel deliveries at the Crown corporation’s main sorting plants in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
Picket lines were up Monday in parts of British Columbia, including Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey, and in parts of Ontario, including Hamilton, Ajax, North York, Pickering and London. Workers also walked off the job in Halifax and Dartmouth, N.S.
Canada Post said Monday that the backlog of mail and parcels is “severe” and expected to “worsen significantly” once online orders from Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are processed. In a statement, the post office said it is experiencing delivery delays across the country and that’s expected to continue throughout the holiday season and into January.
The union will decide this week how to fight on, with its national president, Mike Palecek, saying all options are on the table.