‘Postal service is a lifeline’: Seniors feel isolated due to Canada Post strike

Envelopes full of handwritten letters and donations for various charities are piling up on Dianne Parker’s desk due to the Canada Post strike.

She says it has been heart-rending she can’t ship them off to mailboxes across Canada and the world, including to her granddaughter who works an ocean away in Switzerland.

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“(My granddaughter) loves to get snail mail from her grandma,” the 78-year-old reverend said in a phone interview from her office at an Anglican church in Halifax.

“She has a number of (letters) framed. It gives me so much joy sending it. And I love receiving mail myself. I really do.”

Parker, who is also on the board of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, says her experience is just one example of how the strike, now entering its second week, is “eroding joy” for many seniors in Canada.

Some, she said, haven’t been able to receive the results of their medical exams. Others are waiting on prescriptions. Many feel isolated, unable to connect with loved ones during the holiday season.

“The postal service is a lifeline to the aging population,” she said.

“They don’t have WhatsApp (text messaging), they don’t have email. Their only avenue of keeping in touch is with Canada Post. To be disconnected during this season is isolating.”

She said folks in her community recently saw a senior crying at a café over the strike.

“They asked her, ‘Is there anything we can do?’ And she said, ‘I’m devastated that I’m not going to be able to receive or send a Christmas card to my lifelong friend.”

About 55,000 employees represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers walked off the job last Friday, shutting down Canada Post operations and halting deliveries. The two sides are negotiating over wages, job security, working conditions and other issues.

The strike has been gripping communities across Canada, with towns and utility companies regularly issuing reminders on how to pay upcoming bills online.

Parker said she learned of the strike during one of her many weekly trips to her local drugstore to send mail.

“They recommended that I not even put (the letter) in the slot because it could just be there for so, so long,” she said.

She said she loves going to the post office so much, her neighbours and their kids call her the “mail lady” and drop cards into her mailbox on her birthday.

She said talking to her local postal worker brings her joy. She said sometimes it’s the only interaction seniors have with the outside world.

She said she recently learned the workers can even save lives. In England, postal workers are required to notify their manager if mail is piling up at someone’s door, she said.

“They have to report that there’s something amiss going on in that home,” she said.

“It has saved suffering.”

Valerie White, a 77-year-old senior in Halifax, said she can understand why the workers are on strike, but hopes for a speedy resolution so she can return to sifting through the junk mail and magazines that get delivered to her door.

“I look forward to reading an interesting article, a recipe or someone expressing more information about what’s going on in the province or in the community,” the former government worker said.

“You just take it for granted.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press