In the news today: Canada Post strike enters fourth week

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…

Canada Post strike enters fourth week

Canada Post and the union representing more than 55,000 striking workers appeared closer to resuming negotiations as the strike entered its fourth week.

Federal mediation was put on hold last week due to the sides being too far apart.

Read More:

• Canada Post has ‘taken Christmas away’: Small shops struggle to ship
• Canada Post removes deadline for Santa letter program amid strike
• Postal union says it sent new proposals to mediator as strike nears three weeks

This week the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said it sent new counter-proposals to the mediator in the hopes that talks can resume, which Canada Post said it’s reviewing.

Calls for government intervention have been mounting from the business community, but so far the government has said it’s not stepping in.

The federal government has intervened in other high-profile labour disputes recently, including the ports, using a controversial section of the law to get the labour board to order binding arbitration.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

Purolator, UPS pause shipments from couriers

Purolator and UPS have paused shipments from some courier companies as they try to work through a deluge of deliveries brought on by the Canada Post strike.

Purolator said in an email that severe weather and a surge in package volumes prompted it to freeze service for some partners, citing the need to “prioritize critical shipments.”

Couriers such as eShipper, which act as middlemen between smaller e-commerce businesses and large carriers, are among the companies temporarily barred from shipping with Purolator and UPS.

A notice sent from eShipper to clients and obtained by The Canadian Press says “no shipments will be processed or moved by these carriers” for 48 hours, starting Wednesday.

Montreal-based cookie maker Félix & Norton’s chief operating officer Simon Paquin says the cargo halt and broader postal strike fallout could cost the company its “whole holiday season.”

StatCan to release November jobs report today

Statistics Canada is set to release its November jobs report this morning.

According to LSEG Data & Analytics, economists polled by Reuters expect the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.6 per cent last month.

The jobless rate was 6.5 per cent in October.

Job creation has lagged population growth considerably this year as high interest rates weigh on the economy.

Today’s labour report will be the last major economic release ahead of the Bank of Canada’s interest rate announcement on Dec. 11.

Events mark anniversary of Polytechnique killings

Polytechnique Montréal will pay tribute today to the 14 young women who were murdered at the engineering school 35 years ago.

Vigils and other events are scheduled in Montreal and across the country to mark the anniversary of the Dec. 6, 1989, anti-feminist mass killing.

Representatives of the school and student associations will lay flowers this morning at Polytechnique’s commemorative plaque, where the public is also invited to pay their respects during the day.

The flags in front of Polytechnique’s main building will be flown at half-mast until dusk.

White ribbons will abound to commemorate the tragedy on what is also the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

At 5:10 p.m., at the exact time the first shots were fired, 14 beams of light will illuminate the sky above Mount Royal, lit one at a time as the names of the 14 victims are read out.

The women killed in 1989 were Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte and Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz.

Jasper family reunites with missing cat

Nicole Klopfenstein wonders what tales her family cat Felix would tell if he could speak.

She wagers the best would be about how the four-year-old black and white tabby survived in the wilderness for more than 100 days after a ferocious wildfire forced the evacuation of the Rocky Mountain town of Jasper, Alta., this summer.

Klopfenstein says Felix jumped out of a friend’s arms and ran away in Valemount, B.C., as a wildfire scorched one-third of Jasper’s homes and businesses about 100 kilometres east.

She returned to Jasper a month later with her sister, who had left her vacation and reunited with her family to help with the search.

On Nov. 7, the same woman who had seen Felix on her security camera texted a photo of Felix hiding in a marsh 15 kilometres away from the family cabin.

She and her sister raced to the area from Jasper one last time and caught Felix in a trap.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press