Moratorium protecting all Lambton post offices from closing lifted

Heather Wright/The Independent

The mail is moving again but what will happen to small town post offices, including a number in Lambton County, remains up in the air.

Friday CUP-W said Canada Post workers across the country would move from a nation-wide strike to rotating strikes. “This will start mail and parcels moving, while continuing our struggle for good collective agreements and a strong public postal service,” said the union in a news release.

Workers walked off the job the same day the federal government gave Canada Post free reign to reorganize the crown corporation by removing the moratorium on closing rural post offices, ending door-to-door delivery and changing delivery times.

It’s a move to help Canada Post out of its financial hole.

The last time the corporation broke even or turned a profit was in 2017. Since then, the company has reported annual losses of $548 million in 2022, $748 million in 2023 and $841 million in 2024. And the crown corporation is on track to lose even more in 2025 – over $1 billion according to management.

The union – which was still working without a contract – walked off the job in the face of the massive changes. 

“We did not take the decision to move to a nation-wide strike lightly. Postal workers would much rather have new collective agreements and be delivering mail instead of taking strike action,” said CUP-W President Jan Simpson in a news release.                                                

“Yet, we could not stand by as the government announced its plans to allow Canada Post to gut our postal service and slash thousands of our jobs,” she said.

CUP-W’s national executive board and negotiating committees met with the Minister responsible for Canada Post, Joel Lightbound, Oct. 9 and outlined its concerns with the changes he announced. 

“We called on the Minister to rescind his planned service cuts which he announced September 25. However, at the end of the meeting the Minister said the announcements he made would stand,” says Simpson.

With the federal government’s announcement, 427 rural and remote post offices protected by a moratorium on closures will be fair game in Canada Post’s quest to lower is massive deficit. 

On that list, every single post office which serves Lambton County including Petrolia, Forest, Wyoming, Sombra, Port Lambton, Corunna, Sarnia’s Main retail branch and Strathroy, which has served Warwick Township for a number of years after Watford’s post office closed.

In it’s annual report, the corporation said the moratorium should be lifted adding it would make sure “rural postal service continued to be protect based on the most recent demographic and census data to determine what constitutes a rural area.”

It added “there are more convenient and cost-effective ways to serve Canadians than traditional corporate post offices. These include dealer post offices, regional community hubs and self-serve options.”

The union says the rotating strike locations will be announced as they happen. It’s not clear how quickly mail will begin to appear in your local post office during the rotating strikes.