When he flew to Toronto to apply for a renewal of his U.S. work visa on Oct. 31, Wenqi (Michael) Xu didn’t think much of his trip north of the border. He planned to get his passport stamped at the American consulate and return home to New York City with a renewed H-1B visa.
Xu, a Chinese national, works as a corporate attorney for a software company and has been in the United States for the past eight years. To renew his work visa, however, he had to leave the country temporarily and get his passport stamped by a consulate in a country outside of the U.S., he said.
But when he needed to submit further documentation, he put his passport in the mail to consular officials and waited for it to be approved. It was stamped by the appropriate authorities and placed back in the mail to him last Wednesday, two days before Canada’s national postal strike began. It was due to be delivered Friday to a Canada Post location near the consulate, where he’d pick it up, Xu said — the day Canadian postal workers walked off the job.
With Canada Post’s operations shut down, Xu’s passport is now languishing in a mail processing facility somewhere in the GTA, leaving him stranded in Toronto.
“It’s just devastating,” said Xu, speaking from the lobby of a hotel where he’d stayed for six days as he waited for his passport to be released. “I had a flight booked on Friday night and I woke up seeing this and having completely no power to change my situation whatsoever.”
Almost three weeks and $4,000 (U.S.) spent on a revolving door of hotel rooms later, Xu, 30, is unable to return home and get back to work.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) remained in talks, but had not yet reached an agreement to end the national postal strike.
Canada Post said in a statement Wednesday morning that “discussions continue” with “the support of” the federally appointed special mediator, while CUPW said Tuesday that Canada Post “finally began to move on the pressing issues” and that “movement is a good sign.”
The strike, which is entering its seventh day, has caused delays for businesses shipping goods to customers, family members sending parcels to loved ones and a host of other services across Canada.
In addition to vital legal documents like Xu’s, businesses have also been especially hurt by the stoppage in postal service; a survey conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) found that a majority of small businesses rely on Canada Post.
Christie Norman, a Victoria-based artist, has shipped pieces to every province and territory and every U.S. state save for Hawaii in her career. She said she’s had to manually reroute dozens of orders to UPS in the wake of the strike, which has taken hours of additional work during the busiest time of year.
“I’ve wasted so many hours on this that I really didn’t have,” said Norman, 49.
Given that a large chunk of her annual income comes in the fall and winter months, the disruption in service has caused her significant stress. Norman also has a near-perfect seller rating on Etsy, which could come under threat should her orders go unfulfilled.
“It’s devastating,” Norman said. “I have a five-star rating right now, and I don’t know what this will look like by the end of it.”
Some business owners do not have the option of switching couriers to work around the ongoing disruption in postal service.
Cecily Doyle, 31, the owner of Blueprint Agencies, a digital marketing agency based in Paris, Ont., said many of her public sector clients can only send cheques through the mail for services provided and are unable to e-transfer funds as an alternative. Even if the strike is resolved soon, she said, her business’ cash flow could be impacted into Christmas given the residual impacts of not being able to receive incoming cheques in November.
“There’s really no way around that,” said Doyle. “That’s just not going to be paid for however long the strike happens.”
Outside of the business realm, towns and cities across the country have issued advisories letting their residents know how to pay bills and access city services. Fundraisers are facing challenges, health cards in Ontario are not being mailed out and libraries are having to slow down interlibrary loans and books by mail.
Until the strike ends, Xu said he expects to be stuck in Toronto, waiting for his passport to be released. He’s pleaded with Canada Post for help, but said customer service has not been able to do anything for him. He doesn’t have access to health care and is separated from his boyfriend, who is some 800 kilometres away in New York, leaving him helpless.
“I’m frustrated, a little depressed, and devastated,” Xu said.
