The postal unions killed the only viable business they had (parcels) by going on strike 2x at the busiest time of year. Everyone went to alternatives. There is no reason for them to exist.
Most of the mail that I need to receive by Canada Post is government mail that is mandated to be sent by Canada Post. Everything else ends up being junk mail and a steadily dwindling number of packages. The last Canada Post strike during the holiday season in 2024 pretty much put paid to the packages as well.
There seems to be 2 groups of people who still make use of Canada Post: the elderly and people in smaller, remote communities. There’s something of an overlap between those groups as well. The elderly like the post because they’re used to it, and their power at the ballot box has been a big help for keeping Canada Post propped up. However, time is going to relentlessly erode the number of people who have attachment to The Mail That Was.
Small and remote communities have a better case for a postal service, but the proliferation of satellite internet service has undermined the case that they’d simply be unserved. Without Canada Post, I also have little doubt that companies like Amazon would make their own delivery arrangements. It might look more like the Sears catalog depots of 30-40 years ago, with shipments of stuff whenever there’s enough to fill a van or truck.
I think ending subsidies to Canada Post isn’t a particularly hard call. If the Canadian government needs to fill a gap left for remote communities, it almost certainly would be more effective and efficient to contract a private company or build something new than to try to adapt the carcass of an outdated industrial-scale organization primarily meant to handle letter delivery service for an urban market that no longer exists. Put this one on the shelf with the penny ans get on with it.
There are some surprisingly not-remote communities that Amazon won't deliver to. So some provision for remote communities is certainly a necessity. But Canada Post either needs to do a lot of other stuff (and be a service center for remote communities, accepting that that probably isn't super-profitable), or massively re-evaluate their business model as other companies provide better service for less.
When I left the country last fall, Canada Post was on strike--and would not accept a "redirection" request. I have now been 4 months without mail--to no effect. They have lost their need to exist.
"Finally, that full transition is occurring, but it’s telling that something so simple and obvious became so difficult and controversial."
In fact, this move had nothing whatsoever to do with Canada Post. It was simply one of the things the Liberals very purposefully bungled immediately upon taking power. The transition from door-to-door delivery to super-boxes was not difficult and controversial at all - it was happening!
...but the Liberals saw an opportunity to politicize the issue - and differentiate themselves by being "the good guys" who would rescue us all from "the big meanies" who had imposed the (necessary) changes.
This is EXACTLY the same choice of "virtue signalling over function" which has cost us all our forward momentum as a country over this past "Lost Decade".
Yes, the union killed CP and their last 2 strikes simply drove the nails into the coffin. It’s ironic that they couldn’t see that the strike they voted for was what would lead to loss of employment and possibly even loss of pensions.
Mr. Breakenridge's article frames the future of Canada Post as a binary choice: either preserve an outdated institution out of nostalgia, or accept decline and shrink it into irrelevance. That framing is misleading. Around the world, postal systems facing the same structural pressures — declining letter volumes and rising parcel competition — have not simply hollowed themselves out. Many have reinvented themselves successfully.
Diversification is not “shoehorning” — it is the global norm. The claim that expanding into services like banking is unrealistic or evidence of failure ignores international experience. Postal diversification is not desperation — it is standard practice among modern postal operators.
Deutsche Post evolved far beyond traditional mail delivery, building a global logistics empire and expanding into financial and retail services. Its transformation is widely considered one of the most successful public-sector commercial reinventions in Europe.
"Nippon Post" (Japan Post Co.) operates one of the world’s largest banking and insurance networks alongside mail delivery. Postal banking is not a side experiment — it is a core revenue pillar that stabilizes the entire system.
In both cases, diversification strengthened financial sustainability rather than distracting from core operations. The lesson is simple: when core mail volumes decline structurally, new services are not optional — they are the primary path to viability.
Calling postal banking a “sad indictment” of the business model misunderstands what a modern postal system is. Historically, post offices have always been multi-service public infrastructure — handling savings accounts, payments, identity verification, and government services. Expanding services is not mission drift; it is mission continuity.
Competition and multiple carriers do not eliminate public postal services. The article suggests that competition and privatization are the obvious solution. But many countries that opened their postal markets did not eliminate public operators — they reshaped them.
New Zealand has multiple mail-carrying providers operating alongside its national postal operator. Competition exists, but the public postal system remains a central player.
Kazakhstan also has more than one mail carrier, again demonstrating that mixed systems — public plus private — are viable.
In other words, competition does not automatically make a national postal service obsolete. It simply changes the environment in which it operates. The question is not whether Canada Post should face competition — it already does in parcels — but whether it has been given the policy flexibility to adapt.
Even privatization does not eliminate structural postal challenges. If the argument is that privatization or market exposure automatically fixes postal systems, the United Kingdom provides a cautionary example. The Royal Mail was privatized and operates in a liberalized, competitive postal market. Yet despite those reforms, it has faced persistent financial pressures, labour disputes, service challenges, and continuing regulatory intervention. Mail volumes continue to decline, and universal service obligations still impose significant cost burdens.
Privatization did not eliminate the structural realities facing postal systems — declining letter volumes, high fixed infrastructure costs, and the expense of nationwide service.
What this demonstrates is straightforward:
1: Competition alone does not guarantee financial stability.
2: Privatization does not remove the need for regulation or public oversight.
3: Postal services remain essential infrastructure even in fully market-exposed systems.
This reinforces a key point, that being financial pressures on postal systems are industry-wide structural challenges, not simply the result of public ownership.
Financial losses do not prove institutional irrelevance. Declining letter volumes are real everywhere — not just in Canada. Digital communication has reduced mail demand globally. Yet many postal systems remain financially sustainable because governments allowed them to evolve commercially. Losses therefore demonstrate something narrower: a constrained or outdated revenue model. That is a policy failure, not proof that the institution itself is obsolete. If anything, public openness to expanding services like banking shows that people recognize the network’s continued value — provided it is modernized properly.
Postal networks provide infrastructure the market does not replicate easily. Comparisons to groceries, gasoline, or internet access overlook a crucial distinction: those sectors do not maintain a universal, nationwide physical service network mandated to serve every address at uniform rates.
Postal systems are logistical infrastructure — closer to transportation grids or electrical distribution than retail markets. Private firms can profitably serve dense urban routes, but universal service in sparsely populated regions requires coordination, cross-subsidization, or public oversight. That is precisely why nearly every advanced economy still maintains a national postal operator, even where competition exists.
The real policy choice is transformation vs. managed decline! The article treats reform as synonymous with shrinking services — fewer delivery days, reduced workforce protections, and reduced obligations. But global evidence suggests the opposite approach can work better:
1: Expand services.
2: Leverage the national retail footprint
3: Integrate logistics, finance, and government services.
4: Compete commercially where possible.
Countries that followed this path did not cling to nostalgia — they modernized public infrastructure.
Declining mail volumes do not make a postal network obsolete any more than declining landline use made telecommunications infrastructure irrelevant. Competition does not eliminate public postal systems. Privatization does not resolve structural pressures. And diversification has repeatedly proven to be a viable path to sustainability.
The real question is not whether a national postal service should survive unchanged. It is whether policymakers are willing to let it evolve the way successful postal systems around the world already have.
Some Fun Facts: Mail delivery within Canada first started in 1693 when the Portuguese-born Pedro da Silva was paid to deliver between Quebec City and Montreal. Canada Post issued a stamp commemorating da Silva in 2003. From 1711 to 1851, post offices in British North America were extensions of Britain's Royal Mail. In April 1851, control of the postal services in the Province of Canada was transferred to a newly formed Province of Canada Postal Service. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI also got their own postal systems. Canada's first stamp, is known as the "Three Penny Beaver". It was issued in 1851, just 11 years after the first postage stamp, the renowned "Penny Black" was issued in Britain. The 3-Penny Beaver was designed by our own, Sir Sandford Fleming, the same guy who engineered the Intercolonial Railway and a chunk of the CP Rail, is considered the inventor of the worldwide standard time zones, the Prime Meridian, and Coordinated Universal Time.
I cannot comment on the examples in other countries, but as far as I can tell, the discussion of Canada Post getting into banking services is driven by union interests and advocacy, rather than by revenue-focused executives. In other words, we are having this discussion because postal workers are advocating for more services to employ themselves, not because objective profit-seekers who are accountable for balance sheets have determined that banking by Canada Post would be feasible.
A business expanding itself into a whole new genre of service is never a purely risk-free proposition. If Canada Post providing profitable banking services were easy, then it would be prudent to do so even if mail services were already providing a steady monetary surplus. That Canada Post is under the status-quo operating at a loss means that any failure of a new venture would mean increasing the liability to the public purse beyond what it already is now.
The true case for abolishing the Canada Post letter monopoly is not that it is supposed to change any of the same dynamics that we are seeing with other major economies elsewhere. The true case for abolishing that monopoly is that the monopoly is simply a drain on productivity, and a drain on resources that would be newly-freed up with the elimination of government subsidies.
Postal banking is great in Japan. When I lived there in the 1980s/90s, they were offering 3% interest, which was low compared to Canada at the time, but much higher than the rate offered by Japanese banks.
Yes, it is a massive bank now in Japan; something like 24,000 outlets in Japan. Canada Post used to have banking services but the government discontinued them, I believe sometime in the early 1960's. Recently, Canada Post tried to partner with some banks to offer banking but it was half-hearted and the TD Bank pulled out of the deal.
I posit that a robust Canada Post Bank could significantly disrupt payday loan companies if not replace them entirely. And as our major banks are leaving rural areas, there would always be banking provided by your local post office. I realize that it would not be easy, but it would be worth it in the long run.
I was recently threatened by the GM of my FHO of being derostered for going to walk-in clinics to deal with urgent illness (the kind of cooties one gets with a toddler in the home).
When I tried to use their after-hours clinic, they wouldn't let me book an appointment for a few hours later on the same day.
When I told them that their system sucked, I was accused of disrespecting staff (which was not true) and furthered threatened by a GM that had already decided I was wrong before talking to me. Needless to say I left this shitty practice.
Turns out they threw a hissy fit because they ARE penalized when I go to a clinic. But they were just barking up the wrong tree.
We live in the 21st century and the fact that we still consider sending paper across the land an essential service is telling.
All the "reasons" enunciated for keeping it are easily solvable with a mix of technological upgrades and a bit of common sense.
99% of mail can already be sent digitally and for the 1% that somehow cannot receive email, it could easily be dealt with another way, even in remote communities.
It ceased to be relevant 20 years ago, but a lot of pearl clutching and "eLbOwS uP" has kept the life support on for far too long.
The failure of imagination to solve what amounts to simple problems in this country is astounding, and still is never ceases to amaze me.
I mean, I think it would be mistaken to conflate the volume of mail with the necessity. Princess Auto mails me a flyer twice a month (great bathroom reading), but if Canada Post would no longer deliver it for them, or charged them market rate to do so, I doubt it would have a significant impact on how much of my money they get (and might actually incentivize them to improve their website). Beyond that, 99% of what I receive is junk mail, or statements that could very easily be delivered digitally. Shutter Canada Post and open the market to private couriers, or force Canada Post to charge postage rates that cover their costs, and see how quickly that volume of mail drops.
As I've commented before on other Line columns addressing Canada Post, I actually think there's a case to be made for a national postal service. But that case requires Canada Post to get out of door to door delivery, get out of subsidized flyer delivery, get out daily delivery, and to focus on providing Canadians with reliable and cost effective parcel and letter mail delivery. If they can't or won't do that, get the hell out of the way.
Exactly, and agreed. I suspect if PA had to find an alternative to a subsidized Canada Post to let me know about all the tools and toys that I didn't realize I needed until they put them on sale, they'd find a way pretty quickly.
Damn near all of them. Thinking back over the last year, the only letter mail I can recall receiving that couldn't have been sent digitally is updated auto insurance cards, credit cards, licenses, etc. Nationally, the actual volume of that would be in the hundreds of millions of pieces, not billions.
There is merit to having national institutions that bind this great country together. But there are so many other actually useful alternatives that would get Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast interacting with each other more frequently, eroding the appeal of narrow-minded separatists. This is something that, in lower technology times, the Post used to do. It no longer does in the first half of the 21st century.
As a possible alternative that fulfills this role, a national high speed rail service would be great. We can (partly) pay for it by shutting down Canada Post. I mean, if Indonesia and India and Vietnam are building out their networks (to say nothing of China or France or Japan), there's no reason why we can't.
That was literally what they said about the CPR, which was built when Canada was even more sparsely populated than today. It couldn't or shouldn't be done. But we now have a Pacific coast because of it.
For parts of Canada, right now, there is worldwide precedent for similar density passenger railroads that are economic (Windsor-Quebec City; Edmonton-Calgary), but for the rest of the country it could be an exercise in nation-building. Tibet and Xinjiang have very little population density, but there's a reason that high speed railroads were built there. And, given the experience of the Chinese and the French and the Japanese, we have literal turn-key technologies we can (build and) buy. Many of the countries I listed are much poorer than Canada, and they're building despite the current cost (which is declining as technology continues to advance). Indonesia is an archipelago.
If, say, Canadians in Montreal commute to Toronto or London to work, or Canadians in Halifax take a quick weekend daytrip to Quebec City, that will do infinitely more to bind this country than a hundred hand-wringing op-eds about national unity. We are a big country; we should dream big.
Kudos to George Skinner for a well-reasoned letter and some realistic forward views about Canada Post. Regarding community boxes, I live in a town with a current population of just under 50,000 and have had such a box since 1989. They work perfectly and, as a side benefit, encourage interaction between neighbours. Community boxes may, however, be nothing more than a band-aid on the festering sore that is today’s post office. Some elbows up creative decision making is required here starting with pivoting completely away from home delivery.
The issue with “home delivery” is that, in rural areas, the non-Canada Post parcel delivery becomes, “Please pick up your item(s) at our nearest depot. Anyone who has ever tried to deal with UPS can attest to what an amazingly frustrating experience that is. Canada Post doesn’t deliver to my door either, and we already have 3 day a week service. The difference is — and it is not a small one — the super boxes have places for parcels, which can then be picked up at a known time in a known place. When a parcel is too large or too awkwardly shaped, it is also held at the post office — a known place with known times of service.
What I would like to see the government do to even the odds, just a little, is to require all non-Canada Post parcel delivery to add in a door-to-door component everywhere. And to require that delivery companies such as UPS must have human parcel trackers on site in each location. Not people who can access the same information you can as a customer, but can track down the parcel. Amazon now has their trucks come out to our location. Why can’t UPS and Purolater do the same?
The postal unions killed the only viable business they had (parcels) by going on strike 2x at the busiest time of year. Everyone went to alternatives. There is no reason for them to exist.
I forgot to add let’s not forget taking the axe to the CBC as well while we’re at it.
Let's! And use the savings to cover the gap with CP before shutting it down.
Most of the mail that I need to receive by Canada Post is government mail that is mandated to be sent by Canada Post. Everything else ends up being junk mail and a steadily dwindling number of packages. The last Canada Post strike during the holiday season in 2024 pretty much put paid to the packages as well.
There seems to be 2 groups of people who still make use of Canada Post: the elderly and people in smaller, remote communities. There’s something of an overlap between those groups as well. The elderly like the post because they’re used to it, and their power at the ballot box has been a big help for keeping Canada Post propped up. However, time is going to relentlessly erode the number of people who have attachment to The Mail That Was.
Small and remote communities have a better case for a postal service, but the proliferation of satellite internet service has undermined the case that they’d simply be unserved. Without Canada Post, I also have little doubt that companies like Amazon would make their own delivery arrangements. It might look more like the Sears catalog depots of 30-40 years ago, with shipments of stuff whenever there’s enough to fill a van or truck.
I think ending subsidies to Canada Post isn’t a particularly hard call. If the Canadian government needs to fill a gap left for remote communities, it almost certainly would be more effective and efficient to contract a private company or build something new than to try to adapt the carcass of an outdated industrial-scale organization primarily meant to handle letter delivery service for an urban market that no longer exists. Put this one on the shelf with the penny ans get on with it.
There are some surprisingly not-remote communities that Amazon won't deliver to. So some provision for remote communities is certainly a necessity. But Canada Post either needs to do a lot of other stuff (and be a service center for remote communities, accepting that that probably isn't super-profitable), or massively re-evaluate their business model as other companies provide better service for less.
When I left the country last fall, Canada Post was on strike--and would not accept a "redirection" request. I have now been 4 months without mail--to no effect. They have lost their need to exist.
"Finally, that full transition is occurring, but it’s telling that something so simple and obvious became so difficult and controversial."
In fact, this move had nothing whatsoever to do with Canada Post. It was simply one of the things the Liberals very purposefully bungled immediately upon taking power. The transition from door-to-door delivery to super-boxes was not difficult and controversial at all - it was happening!
...but the Liberals saw an opportunity to politicize the issue - and differentiate themselves by being "the good guys" who would rescue us all from "the big meanies" who had imposed the (necessary) changes.
This is EXACTLY the same choice of "virtue signalling over function" which has cost us all our forward momentum as a country over this past "Lost Decade".
I'd be fine with a once a week delivery. And give the parcels to Amazon
That would be best. I would only have to clear the flyers out of the mailbox once a week.
Yes, the union killed CP and their last 2 strikes simply drove the nails into the coffin. It’s ironic that they couldn’t see that the strike they voted for was what would lead to loss of employment and possibly even loss of pensions.
Mr. Breakenridge's article frames the future of Canada Post as a binary choice: either preserve an outdated institution out of nostalgia, or accept decline and shrink it into irrelevance. That framing is misleading. Around the world, postal systems facing the same structural pressures — declining letter volumes and rising parcel competition — have not simply hollowed themselves out. Many have reinvented themselves successfully.
Diversification is not “shoehorning” — it is the global norm. The claim that expanding into services like banking is unrealistic or evidence of failure ignores international experience. Postal diversification is not desperation — it is standard practice among modern postal operators.
Deutsche Post evolved far beyond traditional mail delivery, building a global logistics empire and expanding into financial and retail services. Its transformation is widely considered one of the most successful public-sector commercial reinventions in Europe.
"Nippon Post" (Japan Post Co.) operates one of the world’s largest banking and insurance networks alongside mail delivery. Postal banking is not a side experiment — it is a core revenue pillar that stabilizes the entire system.
In both cases, diversification strengthened financial sustainability rather than distracting from core operations. The lesson is simple: when core mail volumes decline structurally, new services are not optional — they are the primary path to viability.
Calling postal banking a “sad indictment” of the business model misunderstands what a modern postal system is. Historically, post offices have always been multi-service public infrastructure — handling savings accounts, payments, identity verification, and government services. Expanding services is not mission drift; it is mission continuity.
Competition and multiple carriers do not eliminate public postal services. The article suggests that competition and privatization are the obvious solution. But many countries that opened their postal markets did not eliminate public operators — they reshaped them.
New Zealand has multiple mail-carrying providers operating alongside its national postal operator. Competition exists, but the public postal system remains a central player.
Kazakhstan also has more than one mail carrier, again demonstrating that mixed systems — public plus private — are viable.
In other words, competition does not automatically make a national postal service obsolete. It simply changes the environment in which it operates. The question is not whether Canada Post should face competition — it already does in parcels — but whether it has been given the policy flexibility to adapt.
Even privatization does not eliminate structural postal challenges. If the argument is that privatization or market exposure automatically fixes postal systems, the United Kingdom provides a cautionary example. The Royal Mail was privatized and operates in a liberalized, competitive postal market. Yet despite those reforms, it has faced persistent financial pressures, labour disputes, service challenges, and continuing regulatory intervention. Mail volumes continue to decline, and universal service obligations still impose significant cost burdens.
Privatization did not eliminate the structural realities facing postal systems — declining letter volumes, high fixed infrastructure costs, and the expense of nationwide service.
What this demonstrates is straightforward:
1: Competition alone does not guarantee financial stability.
2: Privatization does not remove the need for regulation or public oversight.
3: Postal services remain essential infrastructure even in fully market-exposed systems.
This reinforces a key point, that being financial pressures on postal systems are industry-wide structural challenges, not simply the result of public ownership.
Financial losses do not prove institutional irrelevance. Declining letter volumes are real everywhere — not just in Canada. Digital communication has reduced mail demand globally. Yet many postal systems remain financially sustainable because governments allowed them to evolve commercially. Losses therefore demonstrate something narrower: a constrained or outdated revenue model. That is a policy failure, not proof that the institution itself is obsolete. If anything, public openness to expanding services like banking shows that people recognize the network’s continued value — provided it is modernized properly.
Postal networks provide infrastructure the market does not replicate easily. Comparisons to groceries, gasoline, or internet access overlook a crucial distinction: those sectors do not maintain a universal, nationwide physical service network mandated to serve every address at uniform rates.
Postal systems are logistical infrastructure — closer to transportation grids or electrical distribution than retail markets. Private firms can profitably serve dense urban routes, but universal service in sparsely populated regions requires coordination, cross-subsidization, or public oversight. That is precisely why nearly every advanced economy still maintains a national postal operator, even where competition exists.
The real policy choice is transformation vs. managed decline! The article treats reform as synonymous with shrinking services — fewer delivery days, reduced workforce protections, and reduced obligations. But global evidence suggests the opposite approach can work better:
1: Expand services.
2: Leverage the national retail footprint
3: Integrate logistics, finance, and government services.
4: Compete commercially where possible.
Countries that followed this path did not cling to nostalgia — they modernized public infrastructure.
Declining mail volumes do not make a postal network obsolete any more than declining landline use made telecommunications infrastructure irrelevant. Competition does not eliminate public postal systems. Privatization does not resolve structural pressures. And diversification has repeatedly proven to be a viable path to sustainability.
The real question is not whether a national postal service should survive unchanged. It is whether policymakers are willing to let it evolve the way successful postal systems around the world already have.
Some Fun Facts: Mail delivery within Canada first started in 1693 when the Portuguese-born Pedro da Silva was paid to deliver between Quebec City and Montreal. Canada Post issued a stamp commemorating da Silva in 2003. From 1711 to 1851, post offices in British North America were extensions of Britain's Royal Mail. In April 1851, control of the postal services in the Province of Canada was transferred to a newly formed Province of Canada Postal Service. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI also got their own postal systems. Canada's first stamp, is known as the "Three Penny Beaver". It was issued in 1851, just 11 years after the first postage stamp, the renowned "Penny Black" was issued in Britain. The 3-Penny Beaver was designed by our own, Sir Sandford Fleming, the same guy who engineered the Intercolonial Railway and a chunk of the CP Rail, is considered the inventor of the worldwide standard time zones, the Prime Meridian, and Coordinated Universal Time.
I cannot comment on the examples in other countries, but as far as I can tell, the discussion of Canada Post getting into banking services is driven by union interests and advocacy, rather than by revenue-focused executives. In other words, we are having this discussion because postal workers are advocating for more services to employ themselves, not because objective profit-seekers who are accountable for balance sheets have determined that banking by Canada Post would be feasible.
A business expanding itself into a whole new genre of service is never a purely risk-free proposition. If Canada Post providing profitable banking services were easy, then it would be prudent to do so even if mail services were already providing a steady monetary surplus. That Canada Post is under the status-quo operating at a loss means that any failure of a new venture would mean increasing the liability to the public purse beyond what it already is now.
The true case for abolishing the Canada Post letter monopoly is not that it is supposed to change any of the same dynamics that we are seeing with other major economies elsewhere. The true case for abolishing that monopoly is that the monopoly is simply a drain on productivity, and a drain on resources that would be newly-freed up with the elimination of government subsidies.
Postal banking is great in Japan. When I lived there in the 1980s/90s, they were offering 3% interest, which was low compared to Canada at the time, but much higher than the rate offered by Japanese banks.
Yes, it is a massive bank now in Japan; something like 24,000 outlets in Japan. Canada Post used to have banking services but the government discontinued them, I believe sometime in the early 1960's. Recently, Canada Post tried to partner with some banks to offer banking but it was half-hearted and the TD Bank pulled out of the deal.
I posit that a robust Canada Post Bank could significantly disrupt payday loan companies if not replace them entirely. And as our major banks are leaving rural areas, there would always be banking provided by your local post office. I realize that it would not be easy, but it would be worth it in the long run.
How about we apply the same logic to healthcare and modify that overly expensive inefficient bureaucracy while we’re at it?
I was recently threatened by the GM of my FHO of being derostered for going to walk-in clinics to deal with urgent illness (the kind of cooties one gets with a toddler in the home).
When I tried to use their after-hours clinic, they wouldn't let me book an appointment for a few hours later on the same day.
When I told them that their system sucked, I was accused of disrespecting staff (which was not true) and furthered threatened by a GM that had already decided I was wrong before talking to me. Needless to say I left this shitty practice.
Turns out they threw a hissy fit because they ARE penalized when I go to a clinic. But they were just barking up the wrong tree.
Yes, I have experienced a similar situation.
How about aiming also at teacher's unions ?? Their results do not justify their existence.
We live in the 21st century and the fact that we still consider sending paper across the land an essential service is telling.
All the "reasons" enunciated for keeping it are easily solvable with a mix of technological upgrades and a bit of common sense.
99% of mail can already be sent digitally and for the 1% that somehow cannot receive email, it could easily be dealt with another way, even in remote communities.
It ceased to be relevant 20 years ago, but a lot of pearl clutching and "eLbOwS uP" has kept the life support on for far too long.
The failure of imagination to solve what amounts to simple problems in this country is astounding, and still is never ceases to amaze me.
Is letter mail down? Sure, it is 2/5ths of what it was. However, that is still 2 billion letters. That is still essential and very relevant.
I mean, I think it would be mistaken to conflate the volume of mail with the necessity. Princess Auto mails me a flyer twice a month (great bathroom reading), but if Canada Post would no longer deliver it for them, or charged them market rate to do so, I doubt it would have a significant impact on how much of my money they get (and might actually incentivize them to improve their website). Beyond that, 99% of what I receive is junk mail, or statements that could very easily be delivered digitally. Shutter Canada Post and open the market to private couriers, or force Canada Post to charge postage rates that cover their costs, and see how quickly that volume of mail drops.
As I've commented before on other Line columns addressing Canada Post, I actually think there's a case to be made for a national postal service. But that case requires Canada Post to get out of door to door delivery, get out of subsidized flyer delivery, get out daily delivery, and to focus on providing Canadians with reliable and cost effective parcel and letter mail delivery. If they can't or won't do that, get the hell out of the way.
As much as I love Princess Auto (and spend way too much money there), I wouldn't miss a weekly flyer.
Exactly, and agreed. I suspect if PA had to find an alternative to a subsidized Canada Post to let me know about all the tools and toys that I didn't realize I needed until they put them on sale, they'd find a way pretty quickly.
The real question is how much of that could be switched to digital deliveries (bank statements, bills, etc.)?
Damn near all of them. Thinking back over the last year, the only letter mail I can recall receiving that couldn't have been sent digitally is updated auto insurance cards, credit cards, licenses, etc. Nationally, the actual volume of that would be in the hundreds of millions of pieces, not billions.
Shut it down. It is obsolete.
There is merit to having national institutions that bind this great country together. But there are so many other actually useful alternatives that would get Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast interacting with each other more frequently, eroding the appeal of narrow-minded separatists. This is something that, in lower technology times, the Post used to do. It no longer does in the first half of the 21st century.
As a possible alternative that fulfills this role, a national high speed rail service would be great. We can (partly) pay for it by shutting down Canada Post. I mean, if Indonesia and India and Vietnam are building out their networks (to say nothing of China or France or Japan), there's no reason why we can't.
"... there's no reason why we can't."
Ummmm ..... geography? You know, distance? Thin population? things that are not found in the countries that you mention.
That was literally what they said about the CPR, which was built when Canada was even more sparsely populated than today. It couldn't or shouldn't be done. But we now have a Pacific coast because of it.
For parts of Canada, right now, there is worldwide precedent for similar density passenger railroads that are economic (Windsor-Quebec City; Edmonton-Calgary), but for the rest of the country it could be an exercise in nation-building. Tibet and Xinjiang have very little population density, but there's a reason that high speed railroads were built there. And, given the experience of the Chinese and the French and the Japanese, we have literal turn-key technologies we can (build and) buy. Many of the countries I listed are much poorer than Canada, and they're building despite the current cost (which is declining as technology continues to advance). Indonesia is an archipelago.
If, say, Canadians in Montreal commute to Toronto or London to work, or Canadians in Halifax take a quick weekend daytrip to Quebec City, that will do infinitely more to bind this country than a hundred hand-wringing op-eds about national unity. We are a big country; we should dream big.
Kudos to George Skinner for a well-reasoned letter and some realistic forward views about Canada Post. Regarding community boxes, I live in a town with a current population of just under 50,000 and have had such a box since 1989. They work perfectly and, as a side benefit, encourage interaction between neighbours. Community boxes may, however, be nothing more than a band-aid on the festering sore that is today’s post office. Some elbows up creative decision making is required here starting with pivoting completely away from home delivery.
"Canada Post needs to undergo reforms to make it viable."
Why? Sell the cadaver to the highest bidder and move on.
Germany, The Netherlands, and the UK have all privatized their postal services. Denmark did away with theirs entirely.
The issue with “home delivery” is that, in rural areas, the non-Canada Post parcel delivery becomes, “Please pick up your item(s) at our nearest depot. Anyone who has ever tried to deal with UPS can attest to what an amazingly frustrating experience that is. Canada Post doesn’t deliver to my door either, and we already have 3 day a week service. The difference is — and it is not a small one — the super boxes have places for parcels, which can then be picked up at a known time in a known place. When a parcel is too large or too awkwardly shaped, it is also held at the post office — a known place with known times of service.
What I would like to see the government do to even the odds, just a little, is to require all non-Canada Post parcel delivery to add in a door-to-door component everywhere. And to require that delivery companies such as UPS must have human parcel trackers on site in each location. Not people who can access the same information you can as a customer, but can track down the parcel. Amazon now has their trucks come out to our location. Why can’t UPS and Purolater do the same?
Totally agree