(cache)Canada Post to end home delivery as workers declare national strike - The Washington Post

Canada’s national postal service, struggling with billions of dollars in losses and mired in difficult contract negotiations with its union, will end door-to-door delivery and cut other services in a sweeping reorganization aimed at restoring operations to solvency, officials said.

“Canada Post is facing an existential crisis,” Joël Lightbound, the government minister responsible for the crown corporation, told reporters Thursday. With Canadians receiving fewer letters and private carriers now delivering most parcels, he said, the corporation has lost more than $3.5 billion since 2018 and is on pace to lose more than $1 billion this year alone.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers called the measures an “outrage” and declared a strike that shut down operations across the country on Friday. Leaders of the 55,000-member union, which has been attempting to negotiate a contract with Canada Post since 2023, said the cuts caught them by surprise.

“We cannot accept this attack on good jobs and public services,” national president Jan Simpson said in a statement. “Let’s now turn our efforts to making sure the government and Canada Post hear us loud and clear.”

Canada Post workers picket Friday outside a distribution center in Montreal. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press/AP)

The phasing out of door-to-door delivery completes a decades-long trend.

Three-quarters of Canadians now receive their mail through community, apartment or rural mailboxes. Lightbound directed Canada Post to convert the remaining quarter, some 4 million addresses, to community mailboxes, a move he said would save nearly $300 million annually.

The corporation will also close some rural post offices, shorten the process by which the price of stamps may be increased and relax delivery standards for “non-urgent mail” so more of it may be moved by ground, said Lightbound, the minister of government transformation, public services and procurement.

The moves, which followed the recommendations of an independent industrial commission in May, reflect a changing market, Lightbound said. While the number of Canadian households has grown, he said, mail has fallen from 5.5 billion letters annually 20 years ago to 2 billion today. The typical Canadian household now receives two letters a week.

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“That means fewer letters are being delivered to more addresses, while fixed costs remain high,” he said. Meanwhile, the corporation’s share of parcels, “which should have been Canada Post’s growth opportunity,” has declined from 62 percent in 2019 to less than 24 percent today. The government approved a $720 million infusion this year to keep the corporation operating.

“This situation is unsustainable,” he said. “Canada Post is effectively insolvent, and repeated bailouts are not a long-term solution.”

The U.S. Postal Service, facing similar challenges, posted a net loss in fiscal year 2024 of $9.5 billion.

As a crown corporation, Canada Post is wholly owned by the Canadian government but is run in the manner of a private business. Other such entities include the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Negotiations between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have stalled since workers rejected what the corporation described as its final offer in August. It has since said it would advance a new offer.

Union members have said want better pay, greater job security and improvements to health and safety. They’ve suggested Canada Post address declining volume by adding services such as banking. They went on strike for more than a month last year.

Simpson said Lightbound gave no indication he was going to announce the cuts when he met with union leaders last week.

“This slapdash approach without full public consultation is an insult to the public and to postal workers,” she said in the statement. “The Government may act as the sole shareholder, but the public owns the post office.”