Lemon & Lavender, a small locally-owned Toronto storefront filled to the ceiling with gifts, decor and Christmas accessories was bustling with shoppers Saturday - with its online orders also ramping up leading into the holiday season.

But instead of depending on Canada Post to ship customer purchases, owner Christina Kotiadis is choosing to send Christmas deliveries using a private courier, even though it’s more expensive.

“We use our private courier mostly,” said Kotiadis. “Obviously trust has dropped in consumers (and) in businesses for Canada Post.”

Kotiadis says despite the deal reached between the Crown corporation and the postal workers’ union, she and her customers don’t have faith in the mail-delivery service to deliver their packages and purchases on time.

“The Canada Post deliveries to reach our Canada-wide audience have definitely dropped - and that’s because consumers have lost a lot of trust in Canada Post and we have also lost trust in Canada Post,” added Kotiadis.

“It’s very difficult for us to try and relay to the customer if a package is going to be delivered to them or if a greeting card is going to reach their grandchild.”

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says plenty of store owners across the country have expressed the same concern and lack of trust in Canada Post leading up to the busiest time of the year.

Businesses have learned the hard way that Canada Post is an increasingly unreliable provider of delivery services - and so many have made decisions to permanently move away from Canada Post, said CFIB President, Dan Kelly, in a Zoom interview with CTV News on Saturday.

“In the 2024 strike, 13 per cent of small businesses said they would not return to Canada Post after that strike. They permanently dropped it and we had a huge number saying that would happen again if there was another job action.”

‘Unusual’ agreement in principle

After more than two years of contentious negotiations and two national strikes, Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) reached agreements in principal for their bargaining units Friday- suspending the strike action, while the language of the agreements is being formalized for a union membership vote.

“It’s unusual what the parties have done here. Typically, union and an organization will come to a memorandum of agreement where they’ve papered all the details of what the deal actually includes,” said employment and labour lawyer, Sundeep Gokhale, on CTV News Channel Saturday. “Here, what they’ve done is say we’ve agreed conceptually on the big picture issues, but now we’re going to put pen to paper and provided that we have an agreement - then we’ll ultimately take it to a ratification vote.”

The two sides had previously been unable to find common ground.

Earlier this week, Canada Post reported a record-high $541-million loss in the third quarter - after it had asked the federal government for a $1-billion loan - adding it will need another bailout by early 2026 after that cash is “fully utilized” by the end of December this year.

Canada Post has suffered more than $5.5 billion in losses since 2018.

In September, Ottawa unveiled changes to the Crown corporation, including closing down some rural post offices and eliminating door-to-door delivery, with mail carriers now delivering items to community mailboxes.

Although some businesses may not be ready to try Canada Post with their deliveries for this upcoming holiday season, there’s hope that the company could regain the public’s trust over time.

“We should absolutely support them to try and revive this company,” said Kotiadis. “They offer fair rates and they get to every Canadian door and they’re our national postal service, so I do believe in them.”

“There are many others desperate to keep this service, especially in remote and rural parts of Canada where Canada Post is the only game in town,” added Kelly. “We need a different Canada Post.. a streamlined Canada Post, with less frequent mail delivery but more frequent package delivery, which is exactly what is necessary and what can be profitable in the future if the company can get its cost-structures in line.”

If the two sides are not able to come to terms on the language of the agreements, then a strike could still potentially take place ahead of Christmas.