The Canada Post strike means city speed-camera fines, water and tax bills, along with Barrie calendars, are not in the mail.
About 55,000 posties have been on strike since Nov. 15, so there’s been no mail service, and there’s no end in sight to the stalemate.
How is the city doing without one of its main delivery mechanisms?
Deputy Mayor Robert Thomson asked that very question at Wednesday night’s general committee meeting, starting with automated speed-enforcement (ASE) camera tickets at Barrie’s two locations — Wellington Street West and Grove Street East.
“I know that there’s a provision of 23 days before you send the ticket out, but if it drags on how would we address any late fees for people, through no fault of theirs?” he asked.
City clerk Wendy Cooke confirmed that under the Highway Traffic Act, automated speed-enforcement charges or fines must be mailed within 23 days of the violation occurring.
“We’re not at that point quite yet, but we did receive an order of the court from Ontario Justice that extends all deadlines under the Provincial Offences Act for all other payments — suspensions, replacements, speed or parking tickets — to 20 days following the resumption of normal mail service,” she said.
“Unfortunately, this does not apply to ASE charges, so our team (city staff), together with our representatives at AMO (the Association of Municipalities of Ontario) are working on alternatives to mailing these notices, including courier service,” Cooke said. “If they don’t get mailed out after the 23 days, we wouldn’t be able to mail them or provide them. They would just become null.”
“If it drags on longer I know that the property tax payments will be mailed out in January,” Thomson said. “Not knowing how long this (strike) could take, is there some direction for residents worried about this?”
Colleen Smith, the city’s acting chief financial officer, explained that tax bills have an interim due date of the last business day of February, and the last business day of April.
“We’re legislated to have property tax bills out 20 days prior to the due date, so they need to go out early February,” she said. “Should the Canada Post strike go on that long, we will be looking at amending the due dates.”
Coun. Sergio Morales said the postal strike was an opportunity to get more people paying their city bills online.
Rebecca James-Reid, general manager of Access Barrie, the city’s communications arm, said that’s already happening.
“We’ve seen a four-times increase in people signing up for e-billing in the last week,” she said. “We are extremely busy at Service Barrie. Our call volume has doubled because people are calling in to check the status of their water bill, and so as people call in we are trying to help people sign up, but there are people who don’t want to do that.”
James-Reid said they are directed to Barrie.ca/waterbilling.
“You can sign up for pre-authorized billing. There’s lots of opportunities for people to pay in there, so we always encourage that, but we also have staff helping on phones or in person,” she added.
Coun. Ann-Marie Kungl asked about the annual city calendars, which usually come out about now.
James-Reid said the calendars were to be mailed next week, to all households, but they will now be held until the postal strike finishes.
“However, we will have stacks (of calendars) available at all of our facilities, including Service Barrie, rec centres,” she said. “It is a really important calendar this year, because it does highlight all the major changes that are coming in September of 2025 with the carts (waste, recyclables, etc.) rolling out.
“It will be really important for people to get that (calendar), so we will be mailing them when the postal strike is over, but there are opportunities to pick them up starting next week.”
Kungl also asked about the extension of digital waterfront parking permits to December 2026, if there was also to be a mail-out that will go sometime in the new year to help people become aware of the change.
“They’re a little bit panicky because it historically was, I believe, the end of 2024,” she said.
James-Reid noted there was a press release, radio ads and a memo on council’s circulation list about it.
“We didn’t want to cause too much confusion because we didn’t want people to think that they had to renew, so it’s something we will look at in terms of mail-outs (after the list strike ends),” she said. “But it is good news for residents. They don’t have to do anything. Their waterfront passes continue and will not expire until the end of 2026 — including for people who didn’t sign up electronically themselves, if they came to Service Barrie or went to a rec centre and had help doing that, those passes will automatically be extended until the end of 2026.”
For more information about how the postal strike is affecting the City of Barrie and what's being done, click here.
