'The people will be with us': Inside the thoughts of Canada Post workers considering a strike
Canadian postal workers may once again go on strike. After a one-month strike over the winter that effectively stranded tens of thousands of Christmas parcels, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is set to do it all again. After a midnight deadline expired without an agreement, the union announced a ban on overtime Friday and said they may escalate.
Article content
Article content
Canada Post is hemorrhaging money, and managers are signalling that they see no way forward without a drastic streamlining of how the place is run. The CUPW, in turn, doesn't want any of that — and is also pressing for more money and vacation days.
Article content
Article content
Article content
But there is one thing we do know. The image and reputation of the Canadian postal worker has never been higher. When the average Canadian looks upon a cheerful mail carrier bombarded by the elements and weighed down with the burdens of their calling, they see an image of the country exceeded only by Terry Fox, the warriors of Vimy Ridge or a particularly majestic raven.
Article content
Do I wish for labour disruption? Of course not, but I know that in any conflict, the people will be with us.
Article content
The die is cast: Today we issued our 72-hour strike notice. In these instances, the slaving plutocrats at Canada Post always hide behind flimsy rationales such as 'finances' or 'imminent bankruptcy.' This is why our demands also include a number of measures to increase revenue at the corporation and restore it to solvency.
Article content
Article content
These include licensing a line of limited edition postal worker action figures, and using our vehicle fleet to spearhead the creation of a backyard furnace program to dramatically increase Canadian steel production as a check against American imperialism.
Article content
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
40 minutes ago
- CTV News
P.E.I. potato growers are benefiting from a Carney promise. Here's how
Locally harvested potatoes are seen in sacks at a vegetable stand in New Glasgow, P.E.I., Wednesday, Jul 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini P.E.I. potatoes are on the move, and it's costing farmers a whole lot less to ship them off the Island. The federal government has slashed Confederation Bridge tolls and ferry fares, delivering a windfall for potato growers whose trucks cross the span each year. 'It was quite refreshing to hear something going down, because when was the last time you heard that? Everything is going up,' said Ray Keenan, co-owner of Rollo Bay Holdings, in Souris, P.E.I. Keenan says it used to cost about $85 for each tractor-trailer to leave the Island. As of Friday, Canada implemented a $20 flat rate for all vehicles, shrinking what some call a 'transport tax.' 'Any time you get a 75 per cent reduction in the cost of something, it does help the bottom line,' Keenan said. The Island is one of Canada's largest potato-producing province, with the industry contributing more than $1.3 billion annually to the local economy. According to the P.E.I. Potato Board, 94 per cent of the Island's potatoes leave by bridge or ferry. The new rates could save the industry $2 million in trucking bills alone. Farmers won't just save on shipments leaving P.E.I., but also on equipment and supplies coming in. Tractors, machine parts and crop production products all must cross the bridge – now at a lower price. Carney announced the changes last week during a visit to Albany, P.E.I., near the bridge itself. 'We're doing that to bring Atlantic Canada closer together, bring Canadians closer together,' Carney said. The long-anticipated changes are in line with campaign commitments Carney made earlier this year to make transportation more affordable across Atlantic Canada in the face of a trade war with the U.S. P.E.I. Potato Board chairman Donald Stavert says the change lightens the load for growers. 'The best part about this is some of the trucking companies would avoid coming to P.E.I. because of the tolls. We're hoping that they will be able to come this way now,' Stavert said. He adds that tariffs are still a big concern, and the industry faces other challenges. But on the Keenan family farm, fields are flowering. Fresh potatoes, pulled from red soil, will soon travel far - for less.
Toronto Star
44 minutes ago
- Toronto Star
First Quantum Announces $1.0 Billion Gold Stream
(In United States dollars, except where noted otherwise) TORONTO, Aug. 05, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — First Quantum Minerals Ltd. ('First Quantum' or the 'Company') (TSX: FM) is pleased to announce that, through a wholly owned subsidiary incorporated in Canada, it has entered into a gold streaming agreement (the 'Agreement') with RGLD Gold AG, a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Gold, Inc. ('Royal Gold'). Under the terms of the Agreement, First Quantum will receive a $1.0 billion upfront cash payment in exchange for gold deliveries referenced to copper production from the Kansanshi Mine ('Kansanshi') located in Zambia (the 'Transaction').
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
U.S. Justice Department to move forward on investigation into Trump-Russia probe
WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed that the U.S. Justice Department move forward with a probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation following the recent release of documents aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the inquiry that established that Moscow interfered on the Republican's behalf in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Bondi has directed a prosecutor to present evidence to a grand jury after referrals from the Trump administration's top intelligence official, a person familiar with the matter said Monday. That person was not authorized to discuss it by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press. Fox News first reported the development. It was not clear which former officials might be the target of any grand jury activity, where the grand jury that might ultimately hear evidence will be located or which prosecutors — whether career employees or political appointees — might be involved in pursuing the investigation. It was also not clear what precise claims of misconduct Trump administration officials believe could form the basis of criminal charges, which a grand jury would have to sign off on for an indictment to be issued. The development is likely to heighten concerns that the Justice Department is being used to achieve political ends, given longstanding grievances over the Russia investigation voiced by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called for the jailing of perceived political adversaries. Any criminal investigation would revisit one of the most dissected chapters of modern American political history. It is also surfacing at a time when the Trump administration is being buffeted by criticism over its handling of documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation. The investigation into Russian election interference resulted in the appointment of a special counsel, Robert Mueller, who secured multiple convictions against Trump aides and allies but did not establish proof of a criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign. The inquiry shadowed much of Trump's first term and he has long focused his ire on senior officials from the intelligence and law enforcement community, including former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired in May 2017, and former CIA Director John Brennan. The Justice Department appeared to confirm an investigation into both men in an unusual statement last month but offered no details. Multiple special counsels, congressional committees and the Justice Department's own inspector general have studied and documented a multi-pronged effort by Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election on Trump's behalf, including through a hack-and-leak dump of Democratic emails and a covert social media operation aimed at sowing discord and swaying public opinion. But that conclusion has been aggressively challenged in recent weeks as Trump's director of national intelligence and other allies have released previously classified records that they hope will cast doubt on the extent of Russian interference and establish an Obama administration effort to falsely link Trump to Russia. In one batch of documents released last month, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, disclosed emails showing that senior Obama administration officials were aware in 2016 that Russians had not hacked state election systems to manipulate the votes in Trump's favor. But former U.S. president Barack Obama's administration never alleged that votes were tampered with and instead detailed other forms of election interference and foreign influence. A new outcry surfaced last week when Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a set of documents that FBI Director Kash Patel claimed on social media proved that the 'Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.' The documents were part of a classified annex of a report issued in 2023 by John Durham, the special counsel who was appointed during the first Trump administration to hunt for any government misconduct during the Russia investigation. Durham did identify significant flaws in the investigation but uncovered no bombshells to disprove the existence of Russian election interference. His sprawling probe produced three criminal cases; two resulted in acquittals and the third was a guilty plea from a little-known FBI lawyer to a charge of making a false statement. Republicans seized on a July 27, 2016, email in Durham's newly declassified annex that purported to say that Hillary Clinton, then the Democratic candidate for president, had approved a plan during the heat of the campaign to link Trump with Russia. But the purported author of the email, a senior official at a philanthropic organization founded by billionaire investor George Soros, told Durham's team he had never sent the email and the alleged recipient said she never called receiving it. Durham's own report took pain to note that investigators had not corroborated the communications as authentic and said the best assessment was that the message was 'a composites of several emails' the Russians had obtained from hacking — raising the likelihood of Russian disinformation. The FBI's Russia investigation was opened on July 31, 2016, following a tip that a Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, had told a Russian diplomat that Russia was in possession of dirt on Clinton. Eric Tucker And Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press
