Just hours after the Canadian government announced a sweeping order for its struggling postal service to cease door-to-door mail delivery, shutter rural post offices, and consolidate operations, postal workers across the nation began a walkout.
This government directive, issued on Thursday, comes as Canada Post grapples with severe financial losses threatening its very existence. However, it also directly impacts ongoing, contentious labor negotiations where the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has been vigorously advocating for the preservation of jobs and essential services.
Since 2018, Canada Post, a federal Crown corporation, has accumulated over 5 billion Canadian dollars (approximately $3.6 billion U.S. dollars) in losses. This dire situation is largely attributed to a significant decline in traditional letter mail volumes. Attempts to pivot towards parcel delivery to revitalize the organization have been hampered by intense competition within the logistics sector and the rise of new companies employing non-unionized gig workers.
“Canada Post is essentially insolvent and confronting an existential crisis,” stated Joël Lightbound, Canada’s minister for public services, during a press conference held on Thursday.
The government asserts that these cost-cutting initiatives are crucial for stabilizing Canada Post’s finances after several previous bailouts. These measures are also expected to lead to substantial layoffs among the service’s 68,000 employees.
“Today’s announcement empowers us to implement the necessary changes to revitalize Canada’s postal service for all citizens by adapting to their evolving needs,” said Doug Ettinger, Canada Post’s chief executive, in a released statement.
However, this move drew sharp condemnation from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. In their own statement, the union declared that their walkout was a direct response to “the government’s assault on our postal service and workers.”
This marks the second time in less than a year that postal workers have halted services. They had resumed work last December, but subsequent discussions failed to produce a new contract agreement. Earlier this year, in May, postal workers began refusing overtime work, and in the current month, they ceased delivering advertising flyers.
“The union’s negotiating power at the bargaining table has been severely weakened,” commented Stephanie Ross, a labor studies professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. “These two entities are locked in a fight for their very survival.”
The practice of at-home mail delivery had already been gradually diminishing across much of Canada, with only approximately 25 percent of Canadians still receiving mail directly at their residences. For the majority, mail is collected from individual boxes within community mailboxes located conveniently near their homes or apartments.
Nevertheless, the elimination of the remaining door-to-door service will impact an estimated four million addresses, according to government figures.
“The data clearly indicated that Canada Post was in desperate need of reorganization and restructuring,” noted Ian Lee, a business professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, who has extensively researched the postal service.
Canada Post was already on a trajectory to end door-to-door delivery until former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it a key promise during his successful 2015 election campaign. Upon taking office, one of his initial actions was to instruct the post office to halt its transition to community mailboxes.
Since then, the volume of letter mail has continued to plummet, a trend exacerbated during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
While recent polling from the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit firm, indicates that Canadians are generally not in favor of completely ending door-to-door delivery, they show greater support for operational changes and service reductions at Canada Post than in previous years, given the postal service’s precarious financial outlook.
“The political reality is that we cannot expect Canadians to shoulder an ever-increasing financial burden year after year,” Mr. Lightbound emphasized.
Officials have stated that no specific date has been set for the complete cessation of at-home mail delivery, and the changes will be implemented progressively.
Additional measures include shifting some mail transportation from air to ground to reduce costs. The government has also lifted a ban on closing rural post offices, a policy that had been in place since 1994 and was similarly controversial at its inception.