Canada’s Minister of Employment says talks for a new contract for postal workers continues to be at a stalemate.

Patty Hajdu appointed a special mediator back in October to work with Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and gave an update on the matter to NL News while speaking in Kamloops yesterday.

“Both parties continue to meet with the arbitrator, and the arbitrator has requested an extension and we’re reviewing her request. My sense is that we’ll grant her extension and I can’t really speak yet to the length of that. But obviously these are two parties who are still very entrenched and the arbitrator needs more time to work with both parties.”

Canada Post workers took strike action in late October but were legislated back to work five weeks later.