Latest CUPW Job Action Stops Postal Delivery Of The Frontenac News Forcing Alternate Plans

Jeff Green | Sep 17, 2025

If you are reading this, the first thing I would like to say is, thank you for continuing to access the Frontenac News, whether you picked up the paper from a store, a tupperware bin at a community mail box, or are reading it at frontenacnews.ca.

As you certainly know if you are reading this in print, we are not able to use our regular service this week, Canada Post. We have been caught up in the ongoing labour dispute with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). We did not see this coming, to say the least.

We learned at about 1:30 on Friday afternoon (September 12)  that CUPW was changing their tactics and ending the overtime ban they had imposed in May. Instead they have decided to cease delivering commercial flyers instead.

It became clear over the course of Friday afternoon, and was confirmed by Monday morning, that because the Frontenac News uses the same general mailing category as commercial flyers, “neighborhood mailing”, although we are in a distinct subcategory, our papers will not be delivered by CUPW members. Through our contacts at the local post offices, and our Canada Post rep, we were informed that the service is not available to us.

We are not the target for CUPW.  We are more like dolphins caught in a fishing net intended to catch herring, but we are still caught in that net 

The President of News Media Canada, our national association,has raised this issue with the Federal Ministry overseeing Canada Post, but the only way this can change is if the national leadership of CUPW decides to make an exception for community newspapers

Before I talk about how we are planning to overcome this obstacle, and continue to deliver local news that is relevant to readers in Frontenac County, Addington Highlands, and western Lanark County, I have to point out that this appears to me to be a greater threat than the two previous Canada Post interruptions we have faced in my time at the paper, in 2013 and in 2024. 

In those cases, one a lockout and one a strike, there was no mail being delivered. It was front page news, the first item on tv broadcasts across Canada. People, even people who claim never to receive mail, knew about it, and and there was a lot political and economic pressure on the two sides to settle or the government to step in.

This time it is not major news at all, and in fact it disappeared entirely from news feeds by mid-day on Saturday

It is indeed a big deal for a few major companies that still send out paper flyers, the Canadian Tire, Home Hardware, and Sobeys of the world, and they may re-think their marketing strategies. 

But there are only a few dozen community newspapers in Canada impacted by this, those who use “neighborhood mailing”. Other papers in our region, the Lanark Era and the Rideau Review Mirror, are not affected because they are subscription based.

The impact of this strike action is minimal or non-existent to millions of Canadians, and severe to a small number of community papers like the Frontenac News.

It is a lonely feeling.

Now, to our plan, which is still under development. First, we are not planning to change our free news model. This paper was founded by a group of people who were committed to enabling local people to communicate with each other, rather than hearing only about events and issues from Ottawa, Kingston, or Toronto, and that remains our focus today. A pay wall is a barrier to that communication.

That is our long term commitment not only to our readers, but to our advertisers. No one has to pay to see their ads.

So, for this week we are doing what we did last November, delivering papers through grocery and convenience stores and restaurants and hardware stores and community halls across the region, anybody who will take them. 

We are also upping our game as far as making them available at community mail boxes, and as near as we can get to post offices, since this time people still have mail to pick up, so they will be going to get it and will be able to get their paper at the same time.

Our Frontenacnews.ca and Everythingfrontenac.ca  websites are still operating as usual. All of our content, including the community columns, is available there, and our web readership is always trending upwards. And we are working to enhance the website's ability to deliver ad messages as part of our planning for the near future.

If anyone has a suggestion for a location where we can send papers, perhaps a community mail box we are not aware of, please let us know. A full list of locations will be posted and updated on our website and in a print edition over the next couple of weeks.

As I said above, we could be in for a longer haul this time around.

I was on a zoom call on Friday afternoon, with our news association director, along with some other newspaper people, fellow dolphins trapped in the same herring net as us.

We talked about what we should be saying to our readers this week.

Sarah Holmes, from the Gabriola Sounder in BC, said we should let people know how committed we are continuing to get local news out to our readers.

“You know, neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep us from delivering the news,” she said. 

At the Frontenac News, we have counted on the postal service to live up to that credo, the so-called “postal credo” for decades.

With your help, by letting people know where the papers are available, and helping us get them deeper into the community, we will continue to live up to that credo, even though the postal service itself has abandoned it.

With your help and support.