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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.

“(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.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

QUÉBEC – Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard tabled an economic update on Thursday with $2.1 billion in new spending over five years amid what he described as a stronger-than-expected recovery from last year’s economic slowdown.

Girard painted a positive picture of the province’s finances despite a projected $11-billion deficit that remains unchanged from March’s budget.

“Quebec is progressing,” he told reporters. “The return of inflation to a low and predictable level, combined with the reduction in interest rates, favours economic recovery in Quebec in 2024 and 2025.”

He said real GDP growth is expected to be 1.2 per cent in 2024, compared with the 0.6 per cent that was expected. However, spending is also up, with Girard pointing to expenses related to record-breaking flooding this summer and increased health and social services costs.

The new spending he announced includes more than $250 million for the forestry sector and $1.2 billion for community development, including $880 million for public transit. 

The government is also setting aside $250 million to assist flood victims and rebuild infrastructure following post-Tropical Storm Debby, and $208 million to promote access to housing.

Girard told reporters the government is still reviewing its spending as it moves toward its goal of balancing the budget by the 2029-30 fiscal year, with more details to be provided in next year’s budget. 

As part of the review, the government decided that Quebecers between the ages of 60 and 64 will no longer be eligible for a tax credit that was introduced in 2012 to encourage older workers to stay in the workforce. Girard said Thursday the average age of retirement in Quebec has risen to 64.7 years in 2023 from just over 61 years in 2011.

“For people between the ages of 60 and 64 years old, the historic gap that existed with Ontario has practically disappeared,” he said. Nearly 200,000 60- to 64-year-olds are expected to lose out on an average of about $1,000 per year due to the changing eligibility.

The government is also clawing back the amount of the credit for higher earners who are 65 and over, beginning at $56,500 in net revenue. Those who make over $81,500 will get no tax credit.

These changes are expected to save the government about $200 million per year, said Girard, adding that “people expect us to review measures and eliminate those that are no longer justified.”

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

— With files from Morgan Lowrie in Montreal

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

OTTAWA – A Liberal MP says his committee colleagues are wasting time by launching a third inquiry into the former employment minister instead of focusing on important legislation for Indigenous Peoples.

Jaime Battiste, who is Mi’kmaq, said there has been an “attack” on fellow Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault, who left his position as employment minister on Wednesday after allegations of shifting claims of Indigenous identity and questions around his past business dealings.

Boissonnault has been the subject of two parliamentary probes, and Battiste said a third one by the Indigenous and northern affairs committee is “a waste of time, and it seems to be the Conservatives’ way of ensuring that nothing gets done in the House of Commons.”

The Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Québécois all supported pushing ahead with the third study, even after Boissonnault left cabinet. Though Liberal MPs did not object to the motion Thursday, Battiste said the committee’s time would be better spent studying legislation on important issues such as First Nations policing, a modern treaty commissioner and clean water for First Nations.

“It’s very much my fear and frustration that politics is now becoming more important at the Indigenous and northern affairs committee than actually Indigenous Peoples that we’re there every day to try to make life better for,” he said.

Boissonnault came under intense scrutiny after the National Post reported that a company he previously co-owned described itself as wholly Indigenous-owned in order to apply for government contracts set aside for Indigenous businesses.

He has been described as Indigenous multiple times in communications from the Liberal party, and in 2018 referred to himself as “non-status adopted Cree” — a statement he has repeated on other occasions. He also said his great-grandmother was a “full-blooded Cree woman.”

He has since clarified that his adoptive mother and brother are Métis, and he apologized for his shifting claims last Friday. 

The House ethics committee has separately investigated Boissonnault’s past business dealings after media reports alleged he remained involved in the company he co-founded after he was re-elected in 2021. 

Opposition MPs on the Indigenous and northern affairs committee passed a motion on Tuesday — a day before Boissonnault left cabinet — for the employment minister to appear as a witness to discuss his claims to Indigenous identity.

But because Boissonnault is no longer in cabinet, the Liberal chair of the committee ruled Thursday that newly minted Employment Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor is technically the person the motion called to testify.

“I figured this might happen,” said Conservative MP and committee member Jamie Schmale.

“If there are games to be played here and we have Minister Petitpas Taylor attend, I don’t think that goes to the spirit of the House order. I don’t think it would be very responsible to go against that … It’s Randy Boissonault that the House determined it needs and is ordered to appear along with several other witnesses. That’s who we expect to be in that seat.”

A new motion from the Conservatives calls directly for Boissonnault to appear at the committee. 

One of the key concerns raised about Boissonnault in recent weeks is related to the government’s Indigenous business procurement strategy.

A directory provides the federal government with names of businesses it could consider using to meet its Indigenous procurement target, which states a minimum five per cent of the total value of government contracts should be held by Indigenous-owned businesses. 

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu told a House of Commons committee on Tuesday that the company Boissonnault founded was not listed on that directory.

Battiste suggested the committee will now be in a position of determining who is eligible for Indigenous programming and determining who is Indigenous, and as a First Nations person he does not agree with that. 

“I have a lot of concern because no First Nations, Métis or Inuit in this country are asking committees — who are filled with non-Indigenous Peoples — to determine our identity, who we are.”

Schmale, NDP MP Lori Idlout and Bloc MP Sebastian Lemire, who are all members of the committee, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

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

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