https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app ... nts-update" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Royal Mails official page
Canada
Incident 2
Update 15 November 2018
Incident: Industrial action
Start date: 22 October 2018
Implications: Significant delays
Expected end date: Unknown
Incident
As a result of ongoing industrial action, we have now been requested to suspend the dispatching of international traffic destined for Canada, from today until further notice. Items posted yesterday and entering the network today will be held safely in our international distribution centre, awaiting further updates from Canada Post. This applies not only to us, but all International Postal Operators. Canada Post are aware of the impact to all customers and are therefore continuing to attempt to reach a settlement with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). We recommend you consider delaying sending items bound for Canada in the coming days as we expect this to remain the situation until we receive further guidance. However, if you still wish to send items bound for Canada, we are still accepting them and will continue to hold them at our international distribution centre.
Once we know the outcome of the latest negotiations, we will then either suspend our services to Canada, not accepting your items, or we will start to ease our backlog by forwarding items to Canada for distribution. The volume of backlogs currently being seen in Canada mean that it will take some time to clear these items, as overtime hours are being limited by CUPW representatives.
Context
The CUPW initiated rotating strike actions in several Canadian provinces, which started on Monday 22 October at 12:01AM. Mail and parcels are not being delivered or picked up in specific communities for 24 hours while the union continues their strike activity – customers should expect to see delays for parcel and mail delivery while their local impacted offices are temporarily closed.
However, the strike action escalated soon after it began, with over 200 operational offices across the country and the 3 largest processing facilities (Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal) having been shut at some point in the four weeks of striking. The CUPW continues to add more communities each day, while Vancouver has been closed several times and Toronto is currently shut for the third time with no indication given of when it will re-open. Canada Post have informed us that a time-limited offer has been tabled to the CUPW, which expires at 23:59 on Saturday 17 November, with the urgency owing to 30-day backlogs in the national delivery network and the holiday peak season approaching.
We are keeping very close to the situation and will update this page as soon as anything changes.
Incident 1
Start date: 9 October 2017
End date: Ongoing
Update: 7 September 2018
What's the issue?
As previously advised, Canada Post have notified us that they are experiencing delays to delivery services due to high volumes of incoming mail. Delivery aims for Royal Mail services for Canada are normally 5-7 working day, however, International Standard and International Tracked & Signed are severely delayed, taking 3-4 weeks to be delivered.
What alternative is there?
If you have been posting using our Royal Mail 'Tracked and Signed service', we highly recommend you use our 'Tracked service' option which is providing much speedier processing and delivery times. Simply select the correct service and label. If you are not set up on our Tracked service, please talk to your usual Royal Mail contact who will help you with the next steps. Finally for our Customers using the Post Office to send your items, simply ask for a "Tracked service" at the counter.
A note about Customs in Canada
Whilst Customs clearing processing times are totally outside our control, it is worth remembering that Canada is one the countries with the lowest de-minimis of 20 Canadian Dollars (circa £11). This means that any goods equal or above that value will systematically go through a clearance process thus creating additional delays. Most of what our customers send is under DDU (Delivered Duty Unpaid) meaning that the recipient is responsible to pay any duty or taxes. Read more on our country guide page royalmail.com/canada, thank you.