Canada Post strike keeping woman stuck in Ottawa as she waits for U.S. visa

A Canadian woman who applied for a special visa to accept a job in the U.S. says she's been stuck in Ottawa for two weeks, not knowing when her application will be delivered because Canada Post workers are on strike.

A Canadian woman who applied for a special visa to accept a job in the U.S. says she's been stuck in Ottawa for two weeks, not knowing when her application will be delivered because Canada Post workers are on strike.

Jocelyn Yu said she applied for a G4 visa two days before 55,000 Canada Post workers walked off the job in a strike that has shut down mail service nationwide.

Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA's Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron, she told guest host Andrew Pinsent that she has no idea where her application is.

"The strike happened on a Friday. Thursday night, I'm checking, I'm anxious, I'm refreshing; it says, 'out for delivery.' Until this day, it's been 14 days, it still says 'out for delivery'. It's ambiguous of a term because you don't know if it's in a truck, in a plant, with a carrier; you don't know."

Yu said the application usually requires three to four business days to process, and with talk of a looming strike, she asked if it was possible to use a different carrier, but never got a response and needed to ship it as soon as possible. She said Canada Post was the only carrier the embassy would accept at the time.

Now, because her application is in limbo, she can't say for sure when she'll actually be able to take up her American job offer.

"It's really highly competitive currently for Canadian talent to land a job in the U.S. and every opportunity should not be taken for granted," she said. "It's been really hard to balance the job offer asking, 'when are you going to come back and work?' and what I'm seeing now on the news. There's a lot of tension."