Possibility of disruption with another potential Canada Post strike

Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) are at the moment in talks as the CUPW’s collective agreement expires on May 22, 2025.   We are receiving notices already from banks, etc, warning of this development.

Some charities were really caught off guard by the last Canada Post strike.   There are lots that a Canadian charity can do to minimize its reliance on Canada Post and the risks posed by a strike.

Here are a few suggestions for charities to consider:

1. Promote the use of online giving.  If you don’t have your own platform (few charities do) then encourage donors to use CanadaHelps.
2. If you still issue paper official donation receipts, try to ensure that you have email addresses and can send the receipt by email.
3. Avoid mail-dependent fundraising in mid-May if it looks likely that the strike will happen.  This includes direct mail and also expecting people to mail back cheques.
4. Communicate with donors and stakeholders to keep them informed.
5. If you have to send out mail, like for notices for an AGM, again, try to do it by email, but otherwise send it out long before the potential strike.
6. All charities should be on the CRA MyBA system so that the charity can electronically send letters and filings to CRA and CRA can send notices and responses to the charity electronically. It is a very helpful system.
7. For charities with November and December year ends, if you ignore my suggestion in point 6 above, then mail your T3010s to CRA very early and check a month or two later that CRA has received the T3010.  Sending a T3010 to CRA by mail is not the same as CRA receiving the T3010! The number one reason for charity revocations is failure to file the T3010.
8. Plan to use couriers for certain items that may need to be mailed, but as this is, in some cases, much more expensive than mail, consider sending items earlier than you might otherwise have done or not sending them at all.
9. Check with vendors and banks, etc, about whether letters or notices can be sent electronically, and if so, consider signing up for that.

While it takes some effort to make a charity more digitally ready, the payoffs can be very large.