Canada Post: No settlement yet. Strike could resume May 22, 2025. | Page 4 | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Norman1 said
Tone deaf and dishonest.

Universal mail service is good idea but not a consitutional right in Canada. If one wishes to have home door-to-door delivery every business day, then one must be willing to pay for it, directly through mailing/shipping prices or indirectly through higher taxes.

Some things that were sustainable before, with higher letter mail volumes, aren't now. That Canada Post employee delivering letters door-to-door has not taken a pay cut since mail volumes have declined. With the stories I've read, they are finishing their routes early and still being paid for the whole day.  

For what it's worth, I am in favour of a publicly owned and operated postal service, including some level of federal subsidy, but not necessarily in favour of door-to-door delivery. I think the federal government's approach, announced yesterday, in accepting all the recommendations of the IIC to modernize the postal service, end the moratorium on "rural" post office closures, and end to door-to-door delivery, as well as adopt a variable delivery frequency for regular lettermail is the right one.

doug said

It's worse than that. They are independent contractors. Something's got to give. We need the provinces to pass company-specific legislation in every province mandating Amazon delivery drivers be employees of the company, or that they be employees of the delivery company they contract with. People deserve a living wage.  

Why?

I am an independent contractor. I am responsible for my income, skills, securing clients, tools, healthcare, sick pay, pension, job security, etc. People should take responsibility for themselves unless something’s wrong with them.

Besides, Amazon delivery system works great (unlike Canada Post) - why break it? If you make costs too high Amazon will replace humans with machines which won’t help humans as much as you think it should. Delivery drivers are likely on borrowed time anyway.

In any case, the reduction of mail volume would certainly reduce the hours of work needed for many roles.  

Life lesson #269
No Frills and other stores in my area used to hire private citizens to deliver their flyers. So, what happened was there were bundles of undeliverd flyers put out on garbage pick-up day to be taken to the dump. I asked No Frills, Canadian Tire, etc. if they do any check to see if their flyers are actually delivered to households. Their response was "we don't care" and we thought Canada Post was bad, eh.

Anyone noticed how they say that Social Security and other assistance cheques will still be delivered, but not any other mail? That means that workers (technically on strike) can still draw a full day's pay for delivering only 10% of the allotted amount. How despicable, yet not surprising for CUPW.

"The wealth gap has been increasing between the top and bottom segments of society. It's time to bring back some equilibrium."

I think the bottom segment's weath is also growing but maybe not as fast as the top segment. In any field of human endeavour some will always do better than others. Think Toronto Maple Leafs (no Cup in most of our lifetime).
Of course, the NHL tried to address this by giving the Leafs Matthews and Marner (but still no Cup or even close).

Of course our governments try to address this "inequity" by taxing the wealthy more harshly.

COIN: In fact, the lower income tranches of our population are not really keeping pace. They aren't matching the price indices, and more of them are losing their jobs or descending to part-time/contract work where they lose benefits - sick days, vacation, pension etc.

Governments have NOT been taxing the wealthy more heavily! Regressive taxes like the GST/HST, carbon tax (now gone) and provincial sales taxes leave the less-well-off even less well off. Meanwhile, income tax rates are less progressive than ever (marginal rates used to top out at 80% but are now almost all below 50%), there are tax breaks that are worthless to those who don't earn enough to pay much income tax, and corporate taxes keep getting reduced as well. Losing the planned Digital Services Tax allows media and tech companies - the largest ones non-Canadian - to shovel cash out of our society without contributing anything save (sometimes) a very few jobs.

The small business tax level and allowing passive investments to be held in corporations allow more less-taxed corporate income to bne sheltered.

CAD: I don't allow direct deposit on any account or institution that holds funds. I know too many people who have been slammed by penalty charges when direct deposits are erroneously reversed or not made on time.

So the direct deposits I do accept (just one at the moment) go into an account and institution that never holds any funds save GICs. That means I have wait for holds to expire before I can move them.

I can deposit a cheque immediately and use or move the funds at will.

RetirEd said
COIN:
Governments have NOT been taxing the wealthy more heavily! Regressive taxes like the GST/HST, carbon tax (now gone) and provincial sales taxes leave the less-well-off even less well off. Meanwhile, income tax rates are less progressive than ever (marginal rates used to top out at 80% but are now almost all below 50%), there are tax breaks that are worthless to those who don't earn enough to pay much income tax,   

To quote the famous late Jack Layton.

"Tax breaks don't benefit people who don't pay taxes." I think that is why he pushed for a negative income tax.