UPDATE (July 11, 2016): CanadaPost Corporation withdrew their lockout notice last night, meaning that for now Canada Post will continue to operate as normal with parcel delivery, hopefully for at least another 30 days. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and provide updates here in addition to working with any customers who may be affected.
As news has spread about the potential forthcoming work stoppage at Canada Post, many of our customers in Canada have asked how this may affect their shipments. Here’s an update from the team at Borderview:
“We are monitoring the Canada Post situation very closely and doing everything we can to keep our customers’ orders moving.”
Due to the nature of the firearm import/export business, required export/import permits must be approved before we can ship anyway. We are hopeful that any CanadaPost work stoppage will be short-lived, allowing most orders to be altogether unaffected.
For orders which are ready to ship before any official work stoppage begins, customers have two options:
- Proceed with shipment as normal, however if a work stoppage occurs your parcel(s) will be held securely by CanadaPost until deliveries resume; or
- We will hold your parcel(s) for shipment at a later date, after work resumes or when it becomes clear that no work stoppage will occur (no storage charges will apply).
For orders which are ready to ship during a Canada Post work stoppage:
Your parcel(s) will be held for shipment by Canada Post when work resumes.
What about other options like Purolator or FedEx?
Unfortunately shipping firearms within Canada is very restricted, and carriers other than Canada Post generally do not allow shipment of firearms at all, or if they do it requires an in-depth advance approval process. For this reason at this time we are unable to ship firearms by couriers other than Canada Post, however are continuing to pursue this option in case a work stoppage lasts longer than anticipated. We will advise customers with held orders if this becomes an option, but even so it should be noted that other carriers’ networks will likely be overwhelmed with volume resulting in extended delivery time frames from them as well.
Conclusion
We are monitoring the Canada Post situation very closely and doing everything we can to keep our customers’ orders moving. Due to the nature of shipping firearms, it’s not as simple as simply switching carriers — thus unfortunately some customers may experience delay due to the unresolved labour negotiations at Canada Post. It is certainly our hope that the time and scope of any negative impact will be limited. While every order and shipment is important to us, we’re thankful that hunting season is still a few months away so do not anticipate anyone missing a hunt for this reason. Thank you for your understanding and patience with us as we do what we can in these unfortunate circumstances. We’ll keep you up-to-date as the situation evolves.