Purolator Courier

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Purolator Courier Ltd.
Type	Crown corporation
Founded	Eastern Canada, 1960
Headquarters	Mississauga, Ontario
Key people	Robert C. Johnson, CEO Bill Henderson, Senior Vice President Sheldon Bell, CFO
Industry	Courier
Products	Package delivery
Revenue	$1.2 billion USD (2004)
Employees	12,500
Website	http://www.purolator.com/

Purolator Courier Ltd. is a Canadian courier that is 97% owned by Canada Post.

The company was originally organized as Trans Canada Couriers, Ltd. In 1967 it was acquired by the US manufacturer of oil and air filters Purolator: the name was originally an abbreviated form of "pure oil later". In 1987 the company returned to Canadian ownership. Although it retained the Purolator name, it has since had no connection with the oil filter business.

Purolator has partnered with DHL for deliveries worldwide.

Kelowna Flightcraft operates Boeing 727 and Convair 580 cargo aircraft for Purolator.

Since 2003, Purolator has organized a popular annual food drive in association with the Canadian Football League. Every season, fans in each city are invited to bring non-perishable food items to a selected home game, and Purolator collects and donates the food to local food banks. Also, for every quarterback sack in the CFL, Purolator donates the quarterback's weight in food to the food bank in the city where the game was held.

As of April 28th 2008, Teamsters Canada, the official union of Purolator truck drivers, package handlers, couriers, and other workers, gave employees a 72 hour strike warning. A tentative agreement from one month prior was rejected by 51% of Purolator union members. Purolator and its union met with a federally appointed mediator and reached a 2nd tentative agreement on April 30th, around 24 hours before the strike deadline.^[1]

Purolator 727 on the left, and a DHL DC-9 on the right at Calgary International.

[edit] Unicell Quicksider

On 2007-09-24, Purolator introduced the Unicell's Quicksider, a prototype full-electric vehicle, lightweight urban delivery vehicle, developed by a consortium led by Toronto-based Unicell Limited ^[2] in partnership with ArvinMeritor, Battery Engineering and Test Services Inc.; Bodycote Material Testing; Electrovaya Inc.; PMG Technologies Inc.; Purolator Courier Ltd.; Southwestern Energy; and the Transportation Development Centre of Transport Canada.^[3] ^[4]