B.C. finance minister replaced in Premier David Eby’s new-look cabinet

MONTREAL – Canada Post and the postal workers union found slivers of consensus Tuesday amid talks with a special mediator, but “a lot of ground” remains between them on the key concerns as a countrywide strike entered its fifth day.

“On smaller issues, we were able to find some progress,” said Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton in a phone interview.

“The special mediator has helped facilitate those discussions. So we’re going to continue to be at it. We’re committed to getting collective agreements. We don’t want arbitration,” he said.

“There’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

With deliveries at a standstill, the Crown corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are in negotiations over a pair of contracts — one for rural and suburban mail carriers that was discussed Monday, the other for urban carriers that was under the microscope on Tuesday.

The union said progress was made due in part to the presence of Ottawa’s top mediator, appointed to the task last week. Peter Simpson, director general of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, spent the beginning of the week at a hotel in Ottawa shuttling between the parties’ conference rooms in a back-and-forth of proposals and potential concessions.

“After 12 months of discussions, the employer finally began to move on the pressing issues. Resolving these issues could pave the way to agreements,” union president Jan Simpson said in an update to members Tuesday.

“The urban unit will find out if there is movement on their side.”

About 55,000 employees represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers walked off the job on Friday, shutting down operations and halting deliveries as the busy holiday season kicks off.

The union is calling for a cumulative wage hike of 24 per cent over four years, while Canada Post has offered an 11.5 per cent increase.

Other wedge issues include job security, benefits and contract work for parcel delivery on weekends.

Negotiations between Canada Post and its unionized employees began in November 2023.

On top of wage hikes to make up for inflation, the union is seeking bumps to short-term disability payouts and ten paid sick days per year. For rural and suburban mail carriers, the union also wants to include corporate vehicles for mail-carriers as well as paid meals and breaks.

Canada Post has argued that its financial situation is already dire and the union’s demands would break the bank.

In the first half of 2024, Canada Post lost nearly a half-billion dollars. The Crown corporation has reported $3 billion in losses since 2018, as Canadians sent fewer letters while competitors gobbled up even more of the parcel market.

The union counters this position by suggesting the Crown corporation reconsider its ongoing executive bonuses and expand its services to manage higher costs.

The last postal work stoppage took place starting in late October 2018, when employees carried out rotating strikes lasting 31 days.

Previous postal strikes held in 2011 and 2018 ended when the federal government passed legislation sending employees back to work.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 19, 2024.

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VANCOUVER – The Transportation Safety Board says it’s investigating after a Boeing 767 cargo jet went off a runway at Vancouver International Airport.

The airport says the aircraft went off the north runway after landing about 1:45 a.m. on Tuesday, but none of the three-person crew was hurt. 

The Amazon Prime Air jet remains in the grass off the runway nose down, both engines on each of the mud-splattered wings are touching the ground.

The airport says the north runway will remain closed four about two days, which could affect other flights.

According Flightradar24, a global flight tracking data base, the aircraft left Hamilton just after midnight eastern time and was landing about four hours later when the flight path showed the plane continuing past the end of the north runway for about 500 metres before coming to a stop.

At the time of the landing, Environment Canada’s weather station at the airport showed light rain and snow falling for about 1 1/2 hours before the plane landed. 

The safety board’s website says runway overruns can damage planes and, in the worst cases, lead to injuries or deaths.

The board says the consequences can be particularly serious when there isn’t an adequate area around the runway or a suitable system to stop planes.

“This closure will have an impact on YVR operations and flight schedules, but aircraft continue to arrive and depart on our south runway,” the airport said in an updated statement Tuesday. 

“We encourage passengers to check with their airlines for current flight schedules and status before heading to YVR.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 19, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

VANCOUVER – Environment Canada is warning that a “bomb cyclone” is expected to bring powerful winds to most of Vancouver Island and the B.C. coast, with hurricane-force gusts of 120 km/h predicted for some areas this week.

The weather agency has issued more than a dozen warnings for coastal areas, saying the peak wind speeds are expected Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Areas expected to be hit hardest include northern Vancouver Island and the north and central coasts, but gusts of up to 100 km/h are also forecast for heavily populated centres including Victoria and the Sunshine Coast.

The warnings stretch from Prince Rupert in the north to the southern tip of Vancouver Island, while Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley are the subject of a special weather statement.

The statement says residents should be prepared for power outages, downed trees and travel delays brought by what it calls a “significant fall storm.”

Environment Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor says a bomb cyclone is caused by a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure at the centre of a storm.

“Typically, with these bomb cyclones, we need a lot of cold air loss in the atmosphere to really eject itself into the low pressure centre, which really helps to deepen them, or helps them to explode,” he said in an interview Monday. “Typically, with this kind of storm, the key phenomena is going to be the wind associated.”

Environment Canada says the storm will develop about 400 kilometres off the coast of Vancouver Island on Tuesday, bringing high winds and heavy rain that afternoon.

Proctor said the storm will likely have the most impact on the west side of Vancouver Island and the central coast.

Matt MacDonald, the lead forecaster for the BC Wildfire Service, says in a social media post that models show B.C. coastal inlets could bring “hurricane force” winds and there may be waves of up to nine metres off Washington and Oregon’s coasts.

Proctor said he wouldn’t be surprised to see those kinds of conditions on B.C.’s coast.

“That would be fairly typical for this kind of track,” he said in an interview.

However, he said that would depend on the track of the low pressure centre and how close to Vancouver Island it comes in before it starts “hooking” northward.

BC Ferries said in a statement Monday that it is “closely monitoring the weather situation” and is in contact with Environment Canada.

While it initially said sailings were expected to proceed as scheduled, a later statement said that it would be providing updates on Tuesday about potential delays or cancellations.

“Our goal is to keep people moving without interruption wherever possible, and to keep our passengers informed as things change,” it said. “In the event of significant disruptions, we will work to reschedule travel or reroute passengers to the next available sailing.”

Electric utility BC Hydro said it has been monitoring the system “very closely” since last week, noting it has a “team of in-house meteorologists that track all weather events” to ensure it has crews and equipment in the right places when storms hit.

“We’re prepared for tomorrow’s storm and are ramping up crews – both BC Hydro crews and contractor crews,” it said in a statement Monday.

A La Nina winter is expected for B.C., and Proctor said the creation of bomb cyclones are amplified under those conditions, when ocean temperatures are cooler than normal.

He said the province should brace for similar storms, though not of the same magnitude.

“We’re really setting up for a fairly typical late fall, if I can put it that way, once we get past this big event of this bomb cyclone,” he said.

The bomb cyclone warnings come after a lightning storm overnight and early Monday covered parts of Metro Vancouver in hail.

B.C. has been hit by a series of powerful fall storms, including an atmospheric river that caused flash flooding in Metro Vancouver in mid-October.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada said in a news release last week that the October storm caused $110 million in insured damage claims, which prompted it to renew calls for the federal government to “fully fund” the National Flood Insurance Program.

It said insured losses related to severe weather in Canada now routinely exceed $3 billion annually and a new record has been set this year, reaching more than $7.7 billion.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2024.