At least two mail carriers in New Brunswick were suspended after refusing to deliver transphobic flyers that advocated for a “child sex change ban,” The Brantford Expositor reported.
Shannon Aitchison, who works in the Saint John area, has spoken out after being suspended for five days without pay because she refused to distribute material from a registered national lobbyist called Campaign Life Coalition. The Coalition has sent out three anti-trans postcards across New Brunswick ahead of the province’s October 21 elections.
Related:
These postcards accuse teachers of “pushing transgenderism” and describe gender-affirming medical care as “chemical and surgical mutilation.” The third and latest postcard states that “no child is ‘born in the wrong body,’” and that “God doesn’t make mistakes.”
Global perspectives delivered right to your inbox
Our newsletter bridges borders to bring you LGBTQ+ news from around the world.
Aitchison said she couldn’t deliver this postcard, as she is the mother of a trans child. She called the third flyer “straight-up nonsense,” said Aitchison. “‘God doesn’t make mistakes,’ so you’re telling me my child is a mistake?”
“I just looked at [the postcard] and thought I’m not giving this to people.”
Aitchison is not the only mail carrier who said she could not in good conscience hand out the flyers. Five Saint John-area Canada Post carriers decided not to deliver the coalition’s latest postcard over the last week, said Aitchison. She is the recording secretary for the local postal workers’ union.
Canada Post says the material does not meet the guidelines to be considered a “non-mailable matter,” and thus, employees are required to deliver the postcards even if their contents are objectionable to the organization itself, its employees, or its other customers.
Two of the carriers – one of which was Aitchison – were suspended. The other one’s status is undecided, and Aitchison said that another two carriers used paid personal days to avoid working during the period when the postcards were to be delivered.
Campaign Life Coalition threatened legal action against Canada Post after the national postal workers’ union claimed some of its New Brunswick carriers had been given the “option” to not deliver the first postcard.
“I am glad that Canada Post, as a federal government agency, is taking seriously its obligation to provide services equally to all Canadians. How it accomplishes that service obligation is up to CP,” Campaign Life Coalition spokesperson Jack Fonseca said in response to the suspensions.
Fonesca also said that Canada Post “simply does not have the right to engage in viewpoint discrimination.”
Aitchison argues that the latest flyer breaches Canada Post’s Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination Charter, which mandates a zero-tolerance policy for all employees and customers.
“Whoever vet this [postcard] did not do a good job,” said Aitchison. She has since returned to work and has been told she’ll be paid for the days she was suspended.
Canada Post spokesperson Valérie Chartrand said that “internal policies cannot supersede our responsibility as the national postal service to deliver items” in an email to the Expositor.
“Our important and longstanding role to deliver the country’s mail should not be seen as tolerance or support for the contents of any mailing,” Chartrand said. “We are a neutral third party regardless of our views, with limited regulated exceptions on what can be mailed in Canada.”
