Why shipping to Canada Sucks!!!

Canadian Postal Strike June 2011 USPS memo

I send a lot of stuff to Canada, but Canadians don't understand how bad off the US Postal  System has gotten and welt to hell in 5 years. I have a small email I send to Canadians  though. It's NOT Canadians fault eh. I realize Canadians are only watching hockey, moose rescues and sledding events between Molson and LeBatt commercials so don't see news about US post system. What used to take something 4-10 days to ship into Canada is now 10-24 days. There is no ground service, anything over 4 pounds automatically 'priority' mail and expensive, like a $9.99 AM Rebel radio I sold to someone up there was $30 to ship. A package tray for AMX costs me $18 FedEX Ground in US, can't this that long, flat thing FedEX to Canada it is over $150 to do FedEx or UPS so have to ship USPS 'priority' and in  the $35-$40 range. You see a lot of people on ebay and craigslist putting 'will not ship to canada' in their auctions, simply because they don't want to deal with it. In 2010, the US postal system is on part to lose a staggering 7-10 BILLION dollars this year alone, 
they have laid off 110,000 people, are closing 700+ post stations and want to go to 5 day work week and well, raise rates! None of this is in news up in Canada so have to sort of 'learn' them. They email and call asking after week if I have sent item, I have to explain to them it went out same day and then send them the USPS ditty above for instance, most, if not all, didn't know USPS was in such shambles! I also joke about the post office I use here, as they do passports, you walk past the poor SOBs there and spider webs on the skeletons, so they been there for awhile. But the soviet bread line the post office is to me is sad, they sort of priced themselves out of it, and a lot of people use FedEX and UPS now. Not even sure the US Post Office will even exist in 5 years. Below is a UPDATE since I wrote the above, the bleeding continues...now up to possibly 2000 post offices closing and priority mail rates just edged up again. Side note! My two "record times" for standing in line is Dec 7th, 2009 and Dec 12th, 2010 both at the Town & Country Office....the 7th was 1 hour 21 minutes, while 12th was 1 hour 17 minutes. That is time from me getting in russian borsch line to time all my packages were paid for. Quite ordeal. Sadly, there is a note on door telling those there for passports to EXPECT LONG DELAYS due to shortage of manpower, duh! Here is a great article from Wall Street Journal from January 24th, 2011 about the possibility of closing 2000 US post offices:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704881304576094000352599050.html

One fellow emailed me in April 2011 that his Gremlin overlay arrived, it was sent out March 9th, 2011 and arrived April 7th 2011. That is almost a month for just regular 'international first class' item. So Canadian, ya'll be patient up there, it is quicker for me to ship something to Australia on bottom of damned world than it is to ship something a few states north of me into Canada and gets stuck in customs hell. But at least you have fine programming like Jacob Two Two, SAW movies (still don't understand WTF that is all about) and that sports show where you have frozen precipitation and men in skates going back and forth to keep you entertained until AMC parts arrive via Dudley Dooright's horse.
Eddie Stakes