Well, Canada Post's union wants the usual. Higher wages, lower hours, etc. They're government owned so they're already overpaid and underworked, but this doesn't matter. Canada Post has threatened to strike (They're not even striking yet), but the mere thought of it pushed a lot of distributors to switch means of delivery. This has put an immense strain on those companies, one of which is purolator, who is also partially owned by Canada Post to begin with.
What happens is say I ship 500 apples using Canpar, 500 using Purolator, and 500 using Canada Post on a daily basis, because fuck, who doesn't love apples? (Nazi's and the Dutch, that's who)
If Canada Post says "Well, we might not deliver those apples in a week, so, you better be weary". Then I'm going to say screw it, I'll ship with the guys who I already use who aren't going on strike!
Now thats 750 apples using Canpar, and 750 apples using Purolator. It's 1/3 more than they're used to. Now multiply that by all the commercial shipments, letter mail, overnight packages of documents, regular deliveries, etc. It adds up ferociously.
On top of it, Canpar and Purolator are not taking any new customers because of the overflow, they don't have the ability to do it, and they're not about to go out and buy new truck/hire more staff in order to get the job done for what, 2 weeks, 2 months, maybe a year?
So as a private citizen, who can't get my daily mail because of the strike, and who cannot mail things like cheques, receive mail, or do anything like that, it's puts them in a spot too.
But, it's not like we're trying to separate ourselves from North America, that would be crazy Brexit talk.