Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

Canada Post and the postal workers union found slivers of consensus Tuesday amid talks with a special mediator, but "a lot of ground" remains between them on the key concerns as a countrywide strike entered its fifth day.

“On smaller issues, we were able to find some progress,” said Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton in a phone interview.

"The special mediator has helped facilitate those discussions. So we're going to continue to be at it. We're committed to getting collective agreements," he said, adding that arbitration is off the table for now.

The economic fallout of the country's rail shutdown is set to come into focus this week as shippers and producers take stock of cargo delays and financial losses.

A work stoppage that began early Thursday morning at Canada's two major railways is slated to end first thing Monday after a decision from the federal labour board ordered the companies and their workers to resume operations.

Canada's two biggest railways say they’re preparing to get trains back on track after Ottawa intervened to end an unprecedented labour impasse that disrupted business across the country and cancelled commutes for thousands.

Canadian National Railway Co., in a statement Thursday, said it has ended the lockout of workers that began earlier in the day.

The move came shortly after Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said he has asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to impose binding arbitration to end the dispute and get the trains running.

In a first for Canada, freight traffic on its two largest railways has simultaneously ground to a halt, threatening to upend supply chains trying to move forward from pandemic-related disruptions and a port strike last year.

In the culmination of months of increasingly bitter negotiations, Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. locked out 9,300 engineers, conductors and yard workers after the parties disagreed on a new contract before the midnight deadline.

WestJet cancelled nearly 700 flights as of Sunday, upending plans for close to 100,000 passengers as an unexpected strike by plane mechanics entered its third day on the busiest travel weekend of the season.

Some 680 workers, whose daily inspections and repairs are essential to airline operations, walked off the job on Friday evening despite a directive for binding arbitration from the federal labour minister.

Since Thursday, tracking service FlightAware shows WestJet has cancelled 687 flights scheduled to fly between then and the end of the Canada Day long weekend.

A fresh set of Health Canada regulations that will require warning labels on individual cigarettes is set to come into effect Tuesday.

The move, announced earlier this year, makes Canada the first country in the world to take that step in the ongoing effort to help smokers kick the habit and deter potential puffers from picking it up.

Airlines say it goes too far. Advocates say not far enough.

The proposed overhaul of Canada's passenger rights charter earned mixed reviews Monday after Transport Minister Omar Alghabra laid out measures to tighten loopholes to traveller compensation and toughen penalties.

If passed, the reforms will put the onus on airlines to show a flight disruption is caused by safety concerns or reasons outside their control, with specific examples to be drawn up by the Canadian Transportation Agency as a list of exceptions around compensation.

Canadian Blood Services is in talks with companies that pay donors for plasma as it faces a decrease in collections.

The blood-collection agency issued a statement on Friday saying it is in "ongoing discussion with governments and the commercial plasma industry" on how to more than double domestic plasma collection to 50 per cent of supply.

Canadian Blood Services has previously cautioned that letting companies trade cash for plasma — a practice banned in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec — could funnel donors away from voluntary giving.