A deal between Canada Post and the union that represents its workers appeared imminent on Monday afternoon, as the two sides attempted to reach a settlement before the midnight strike deadline.

"I think we can do it," Canadian Union of Postal Workers president Deborah Bourque said. "Certainly, if the will is there [we will] to try and hammer out an agreement before the deadline."

Canada Post spokesman John Caines said the talks have come down to final language.

"There's a lot of fine tuning that has to take place," he said Monday. "It's going to take some time, that's all."

But Mr. Caines suggests it will be several hours before a tentative deal is set.

"I think it will take a while today. There are still lots of things to be done."

"There was a lot of good progress made over the weekend, and we're going to keep working until we get this done," he added.

The two sides have been negotiating for more than seven months, with the union in a strike position since June.

The strike deadline had been extended twice since last Friday, and both sides have said they want to avoid job action.

Among the issues are wages and benefits, letter-carrier workloads and injury rates.

If a strike occurs, the union pledges to continue delivery of social-assistance and government pension cheques. Still, a survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimated that 73 per cent of small- and medium-sized businesses would lose money.

During the 1997 strike, the business federation estimated that members lost about $200-million a day in sales and expenses.

Picket lines in that strike were up for almost two weeks before Christmas that year, and ended only after the federal government introduced emergency legislation to force an arbitrated settlement.

That strike had a major impact on governments and business, despite the availability of e-mail and fax machines.

CUPW represents 48,000 members in rural and urban communities, including full-time, part-time, and temporary workers.

With a report from Canadian Press