Canada Post workers picket outside a distribution centre in Montreal on Friday.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
The union representing Canada Post workers said its members would immediately go on strike after the federal government announced a broad overhaul of the beleaguered Crown corporation, including an end to door-to-door delivery.
“In response to the government’s attack on our postal service and workers, effective immediately, all CUPW members at Canada Post are on a nationwide strike,” the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said in a brief statement on its website Thursday evening.
Earlier in the day, Public Works Minister Joël Lightbound introduced sweeping changes to the postal service, saying it was “effectively insolvent” and that bailing out Canada Post repeatedly was not a long-term solution.
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In a bid to stem financial losses, the government instructed Canada Post to end door-to-door delivery of mail across the country and shut down post offices in areas that were formerly considered rural but are now suburban.
Ottawa had said that Canada Post would have 45 days from Thursday to present a plan to the government on how it would alter the postal service based on these directives.
The union called Ottawa’s moves “drastic” and said they would negatively affect the public and postal workers.
“CUPW is outraged and appalled by the minister’s announcement today,” the statement said. “Our singular objective over the last two years has been to negotiate new collective agreements that meet the needs of workers and the public.
“Throughout this time, Canada Post has done everything in its power to avoid real bargaining and has repeatedly relied on government intervention. Today is just another example.”
This is the second time in less than a year that postal workers have gone on strike. CUPW members went on a month-long strike last November, in the leadup to the busy holiday season.
Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu responded to the walkout with a statement Thursday evening that said federal mediators remain available to support the bargaining process. “I encourage both parties to continue working toward a fair resolution,” said the statement.
The federal government is the sole shareholder of Canada Post. The announcement Thursday morning came during negotiations between CUPW and the postal service that have dragged on for more than 20 months. Canada Post was due to present new offers to CUPW on Friday.
The postal service has been bleeding money over the past seven years, owing primarily to a decline in letter mail and the growth of private delivery couriers such as Amazon and Dragonfly Shipping, which have substantially lower labour costs and run around-the-clock services.
In the second quarter of 2025, Canada Post reported a $407-million loss, the largest before tax in a single quarter. It estimates that it has lost more than $4-billion since 2018. In January, Ottawa loaned it roughly $1-billion to maintain solvency.
In a press conference on Thursday, Mr. Lightbound hinted that the government could continue to inject cash into the postal service to keep it afloat, but that there were “limits” to the government’s capacity to keep bailing it out.
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The end of door-to-door delivery would save the postal service almost $400-million annually, the government estimates. Roughly three-quarters of Canadians already get their mail through community, apartment and rural mailboxes, while one-quarter, or four million addresses, still receive mail directly at their door.
The government is also instructing the postal service to adjust its letter mail delivery standards by moving non-urgent mail by ground instead of air. This change is expected to increase the time it takes to deliver letter mail from an average of three to four days to an average of three to seven days.
According to Canada Post, the average household receives just two letters per week, but its operations are designed for volumes far higher. In 2006, for example, it delivered 5.5 billion letters, but by 2024, that number had fallen to just two billion. Ottawa says the changes in delivery standards will save the postal service more than $20-million annually.
Public Works and Procurement Minister Joël Lightbound announced Thursday door-to-door mail delivery will end for almost all Canadian households within the next decade.
The Canadian Press
Canada Post has a dual mandate: to operate in a self-sustaining manner based on revenue generated, not government subsidies; and to deliver postal services to all Canadians based on obligations laid out in the Canadian Postal Service Charter. But aspects of this legislation have remained unchanged for decades, despite vast developments in how Canadians receive and send mail and parcels.
A moratorium on closing rural post offices has been in place since 1994, covering almost 4,000 locations across the country. But over the past 30 years, areas that were once considered rural have become suburban, and post offices aren’t frequented by the public like they used to be. Ottawa plans to lift this moratorium, calling on Canada Post to “right-size its network.”
Ottawa’s directives are based on recommendations of the Industrial Inquiry Commission, or IIC, which was created earlier this year to help resolve the labour dispute. The commission, led by arbitration expert William Kaplan, issued its final report in May, recommending that door-to-door delivery be discontinued entirely and that Ottawa scrap the moratorium on rural post-office closings.
When it was released, the report was met with harsh criticism from CUPW and labour experts who said the recommendations essentially mimicked demands that have been made by Canada Post and the government for years and ignored workers’ rights laid out in the collective bargaining agreement.
Indeed, Canada Post has been calling for a review of its mandate and obligations to deliver mail to all Canadians, saying legacy government measures have limited its ability to compete and fuelled its financial crisis.
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A key part of the dispute between CUPW and Canada Post involves labour costs related to parcel delivery. The corporation wants to create more flexible, part-time jobs to lower costs and increase the pace of weekend delivery.
It has also proposed implementing dynamic routing – delivery routes that change according to mail and parcel volumes – a drastic move away from fixed routes that letter carriers currently follow on their daily shifts.
CUPW is vehemently against both those changes, arguing that they will result in fewer full-time jobs. Canada Post has an employee base of approximately 60,000 people, 20 per cent of whom are temporary or contract workers.
“The Liberals are burning bridges with the labour movement faster than an Xpresspost delivery,” said Larry Savage, professor of labour studies at Brock University.
“The federal government appears to be steamrolling over the collective bargaining process by imposing the IIC recommendations with no regard for the union’s contract.”
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Prof. Savage also said he expected the federal government to use the IIC recommendations as a justification for restructuring Canada Post, but he did not think it would happen in the middle of a round of bargaining.
Mr. Lightbound said he has informed Canada Post to take a “cold hard look” at finding efficiencies throughout the organization, including at the management level.
But he did not directly answer questions at the news conference about how Canada Post’s staffing levels would be affected by the overhaul.
This is not the first time governments have proposed an end to door-to-door delivery. In 2013, then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper tried to introduce community mailboxes across the country and end door-to-door delivery but was met with much opposition from the public.
With a report from Ian Bailey