Canada Post urging Canadians to get Christmas shopping done early

Canada Post says it is gearing up for a holiday season like no other and with that in mind they are asking Canadians to get a jump start when it comes online shopping.

Canada Post says it is scaling up its operations in anticipation of an increase in the volume of packages it expects to handle in the coming months. It will be adding more than 4,000 temporary seasonal employees and increasing its fleet by more than 1,000 vehicles. It is also planning on weekend deliveries in most communities, extended hours at many post offices and additional parcel pickup locations.

The Crown corporation says Canadians can do their part by shopping early and getting their parcels into the system sooner in order to avoid any Christmas Day disappointments.

“This year, online shopping has grown significantly as Canadians spent more time at home to combat COVID. We expect that trend to continue, resulting in a significant number of parcels to be processed and delivered,” Rod Hart, chief customer and marketing officer at Canada Post, says in a release.

“Even with these extra measures, there are limits to what we can safely process and deliver. So we’re asking you to break with tradition and shop early this holiday season to avoid disappointment. If not, the traditional late holiday surge of parcels — on top of the expected demand — could overwhelm our ability to process and deliver and cause delays.”

Canada Post says since April, they have been dealing with “Christmas-level” volumes of parcels, delivering up to two-million packages in a single day. The volume of parcels being handled is up 64 per cent from the same time a year ago.