Canada Post is expecting to deliver 3,400 parcels every minute across the country on what the Crown corporation says is its busiest day of the year.
Paula Bernat, the director of operations in Halifax, says Canada Post has been delivering 1 million parcels every day since the Black Friday – Cyber Monday weekend.
Canada Post delivered a record 36 million parcels last holiday season and this year it expects to shatter that record, with as many as 43 million packages delivered across the country.
While people are mailing fewer letters, they’re shopping online more, which Bernat says accounts for the boost in business.
“Eighty-four per cent of Canadians shop online and that’s really driving the business and we’re seeing that in the parcels and the packets that we have here today in the plant,” she says.
“Really, the shape and size of the mail has continued to shift, so we’ve shifted from being a primarily letter mail business and today, again, shifting to parcels and packets.”
Bernat says workers at the Almon Street sorting station in Halifax – the biggest sorting station in Nova Scotia and the main processing hub for the Maritimes – delivered 7,000 parcels in Metro Halifax alone over the weekend.
“Over this past weekend, as an example, we processed just under 50,000 parcels for Nova Scotia-wide and beyond, and we also processed 2.5 million pieces of letter mail,” says Bernat.
While the Christmas deadline is creeping up, Bernat says you still have time to get your letters and parcels shipped across the country.
“We’re approaching that cutoff, on the 16th would be for regular parcels,” she says. “If you’re that person that’s always a little bit at the last minute, you can squeak that in next week on the 22nd, 23rd, you can choose express post, one of our premium products, and we’ll get it there for you under the tree.”
