But long-term losses could be worse for the Crown corporation as the papers look for other ways to get their news into people’s homes.
The Canada Post strike could lead to long-term losses for the Crown corporation in the millions of dollars if community newspapers are deprived of its distribution network for too long.
Their print editions, which had been delivered by Publisac, required a new distribution vehicle. The only option was Canada Post, which cost three times more.
“It was already very difficult for the industry because we went from a distribution cost of about $50 to $60 per 1,000 copies to $150 per 1,000 copies,” Benoit Chartier, president of the Hebdos Québec administration council, told La Presse Canadienne.
“And now the Canada Post strike is another heavy blow because it forces editors to find alternative ways to get people their newspaper, but there’s nobody but Canada Post who goes door-to-door,” he said.
Hebdos Québec’s 40 members publish a total of 120 newspapers and employ 275 journalists. Canada Post’s high costs meant many members could no longer distribute door-to-door, relying instead on drop-off points. But most turned to Canada Post, whose employees are now on strike.
“For now, people are temporarily replacing distribution networks with drop-off points. Others are managing to go door-to-door with a system of newspaper deliverers, but that’s only for urban areas, not rural ones. It’s a bit catastrophic and we’re anxious for the conflict to resolve itself,” Chartier said.
Chartier called on federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to intervene.
“The minister of labour needs to pull out the card he has up his sleeve, the joker, with the binding arbitration he imposed on CN and CP, on the ports of Montreal and Vancouver. I think he should apply this relatively quickly to Canada Post.”
But Chartier, a publisher of half-a-dozen weeklies, including the Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe, North America’s oldest French-language print paper, isn’t one to give up. He notes that Transcontinental has partially relaunched its former Publisac distribution network to continue delivering the new version, Radar, which has also lost Canada Post service.
“Some editors are taking advantage of this network to get to readers’ doors,” Chartier said.
“Editors can find some pretty miraculous solutions, but we can’t go on like this for six months. The industry can maybe manage two, three, four weeks.”
That threat might give Canada Post and its union pause in a context where it’s accumulating losses and its competitors are undercutting it.
“It could happen that at a certain point, editors might turn to distribution networks. TC could bring back its network, make it more solid to separate itself from Canada Post if there’s a risk this lasts too long. We’ve become very, very good clients to Canada Post in the last 10 months, we pay millions of dollars, and I’m just talking about Quebec, but this applies across the country.”