The union told the BBC the current standstill “didn’t need to be this way”.

“[We] only took the difficult decision to call a strike after Canada Post announced the end to the existing collective agreements, an end to health benefits and to lay-offs,” the union said in a statement.

The statement said that postal workers are “deeply aware” of the hurt the strike is causing communities, pointing to its decision to delay contract negotiations so workers could deliver throughout the pandemic.

It said the company is trying to replace full-time unionised jobs with temporary “gig” workers.

In a statement to the BBC, the company said it understands the impact this strike is having on Canadians, but that they could not afford to not make transformative changes.

“With mounting financial losses in the billions, Canada Post requires greater flexibility to its outdated, mail-based delivery model. This is about the future of the postal service and growing revenues by better serving Canadians.”

The union, meanwhile, said it believes the company can be profitable without gig work, and pointed to its proposal to adopt the UK model of having the post office offer low-fee mail banking.

At issue, says Carleton University public policy professor Ian Lee, who has spent several decades researching the country’s postal service, is the very survival of Canada Post itself.

“It’s Armageddon,” he told the BBC, comparing the fate of Canada Post to that of Blockbuster Video.

Canada Post, which is a for-profit company owned by the federal government, posted a C$749m loss during the 2023 fiscal year.

The company’s biggest business used to be delivering letters – but letter volume has dropped from 5.5 billion pieces in 2006 to 2.3 billion in 2022 with the rise of the internet, according to the company’s annual report.

Although parcel delivery has greatly increased with the advent of online shopping, they face stiff competition in the field, especially from Amazon, which uses its own couriers for many of its orders.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has faced similar issues, reporting a $9.5bn net loss during the last fiscal year.

On Friday, the USPS announced it was pausing accepting mail destined for Canada due to Canada Post “indicating that they are unable to process or deliver international mail or services as a result of the ongoing national strike”.

But as the strike has dragged on, Canada Post’s financials have deteriorated even further. The company says it has delivered 10 million fewer parcels since the strike began. It began temporarily laying off striking workers this week, a move the union has called illegal.

Canada Post has said the lay-offs are in accordance with the Canada Labour Code.