Like a crabby old couple beyond the help of therapy, the Canadian public's fractious relationship with its postal service staggers on.

After several months of negotiation, a threatened lock-out, a strike and another dose of back-to-work legislation, we're back where we started.

This last round of negotiations began in April. The sticking point was, and still is, the redefinition of the postal workers' load and the pace at which mail is delivered. As both parties jockeyed for public support, the debate assumed a bizarre, robotic tone as kilograms of mail per bag and kilometres walked in an hour came into play.

Canada's postal service is struggling against the odds to become an efficient, cost-effective delivery service in a vast, sparsely populated, and increasingly wired country. The postal workers, who have a entrenched tradition of union membership and collective bargaining, are trying to hang on to jobs and benefits in an era of layoffs and technological evolution.

This labor battle is being fought on the field of Canadian business. Like it or not, postal service is essential to Canada's small-business community. Like it or not, non-profit organizations need the post office. Like it or not, the post office delivers most of the cheques for all levels of government. And like it or not, many Canadians cannot do without a postal service.

The federal government had no choice but to legislate the postal workers back. But that is only a fix, not a solution.

This country needs a postal service. But what shape it should take and what its mandate should be need to be resolved. How it should be run and who should run it are also questions that need answers. There will be no lasting labor peace until the bigger issues are solved.

In the meantime, the crabby couple goes bickering into the sunset.

The initial impression coming from the joint RCMP and bylaw snowmobile patrols is that riders are for the most part obeying the rules of the snow. Of the six tickets handed out, none were for speeding.

One of the attractions of Yellowknife is the attitude toward snowmachines. Only the streets in the downtown core are off-limits to snow machines and with the lakes and trails, getting around is quite easy.

The mild weather creates a greater hazard with overflow and there have been some mishaps. But as a tragic accident on Frame lake in 1995 proved, excessive speed and recklessness are the greatest hazards, mostly for pedestrians on the lakes and trails.

Snowmachines aren't toys. The pleasures and privileges that riders enjoy in Yellowknife are exactly that: privileges, not rights. Heeding the law will ensure that riders will enjoy these privileges in the future.