Canadians empowered by a strong dollar and faced with long lines at border crossings have turned to the Internet as a way to do their holiday shopping in the United States.
But a consumers' agency said this week that online shoppers are already facing a "bottleneck" that will only make delays longer as the Christmas season approaches.
Canada Post reported seeing cross-border parcel traffic increase 15 per cent in October compared to the same month last year, and noted a similar jump in September.
Francois Legault, a spokesperson for Canada Post, said the jump is likely related to an increase in online shopping at U.S. stores.
"We have noticed that the parcels that we have received, the majority of them are from U.S. retailers," Legault told CTV.ca.
After the loonie hit parity with the U.S. dollar, reaching a value of US$1.10 at one point last week, Canadians began flocking across the border to take advantage of lower prices and stronger buying power.
But in the lead-up to the Christmas season, the number of parcels and mail received from south of the border has jumped as well.
The Canadian Border Services Agency reported seeing a notable increase in the amount of packages sent to Canada from the U.S.
"We've seen a recent surge due in part to the strong Canadian dollar and also it coincided with the beginning of the holiday season, which is always the busiest part of the year for our postal services," spokesperson Chris Williams said.
Canada Post and the Canadian Border Services Agency routinely increase their staff to handle the extra traffic during the holiday season.
But Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers Association of Canada, said shoppers have already reported delivery delays of three or four weeks.
"Why would it take three or four weeks to get something that was shipped from the United States? There's got to be a bottleneck somewhere," Cran told CTV.ca.
"These delays have not been explained at this point."
Cran said he spoke to a border services employee who said they were "overwhelmed" by the volume of packages going through.
Your package is in the mail
Williams couldn't give details on how much of an increase border services had already seen, but said the mail processing centres were handling the jump well.
Mail flowing from the U.S. is checked by border services at one of three mail centres, located in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, before being returned to the chain of delivery.
Their goal is to process every package within 48 hours of its arrival, Williams said.
"Our postal program is seeing to it that upon the mail making it to us, a vast majority is being immediately being released back into the Canada Post system for delivery," Williams said.
"The vast majority of our processes are well within our standards."
Cran said the Consumers Association of Canada has been advising people who will be Christmas shopping online do it as soon as possible, otherwise the gifts may not be delivered in time for Christmas.
Williams offered a similar warning.
"Both us and Canada Post recommend that consumers place any online or international orders early enough so that they aren't affected by any unexpected delays," he said.
