The 13th postal work stoppage since Canada Post became a corporation in 1981 began on Sept. 26 in response to the Liberal government’s plan to end door-to-door mail delivery. During the 2015 campaign, Justin Trudeau promised postal workers and Canadians that he would not allow Stephen Harper to end what the future prime minister believed was a sacred trust. Once he won the election, he moved to keep that promise, and for years afterwards, he continued to protect and defend the importance of home delivery. During his decade in charge, he repeatedly displayed poor judgment, something the country sorrowfully discovered during his tenure. Trudeau could have saved billions and ensured a smooth transition to community mailboxes if he’d understood home delivery costs. Instead, a decade later, his successor must do what should have happened years earlier.
Canada Post began as Royal Mail Canada, the official name of the Post Office Department in 1867. In 1981, to secure the company’s financial future, it became a corporation under the Canada Post Corporation Act. Delivering to an area larger than any other country, the Corporation employs over 60,000 people and operates over 6,000 post offices. There are approximately 25,000 mail delivery personnel and about 13,000 vehicles in their transportation fleet. The effort to help the corporation become independent and sound depended on various parts of the company working together. Management would have to be frugal, competitive, and cultivate positive relations with the workforce. CUPW (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) would have to recognize the new world of parcel delivery. Other companies could compete, prices would determine the workload, and labour would have to accept that the company could not guarantee jobs.
Canada Post workers, like most public sector workers, have the misfortune of strong-willed and overly determined leaders. What appears obvious to most runs against the grain of union bosses’ labour negotiation tactics. Even while the company lost money, the union insisted on demanding raises beyond inflation, job security, better benefits, and increased time off through vacation or guaranteed sick and personal days. As a former teacher, this same scenario unfolded repeatedly throughout my career, but teachers negotiate directly with the Ontario government. Postal workers are employees of an independent corporation, but they never received that message from their union, which fought fights that cost them more jobs and a lot of public goodwill. Every strike reduced the number of clients using Canada Post and drove businesses into the open arms of new delivery companies, happy to pick up new contracts.
With the expiration of a labour contract in November 2023, the writing was on the wall. By last fall, talks between the government and the postal workers had failed, and on Nov. 15, after the union threatened to go on strike, the corporation locked out the union. Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre asked Prime Minister Trudeau on Dec. 12 when the government would act to end the strike. Trudeau was adamant that both sides should negotiate to resolve these issues. On Dec. 17, former labour minister Stephen MacKinnon ordered the workers back, and the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) ruled in favour of MacKinnon’s directive. The caveat being that a deal needed to be negotiated by May 2025.
Canadians inconvenienced at Christmas last year lost whatever confidence they still had in Canada Post. More individual homeowners turned to paying bills online, using technology to deliver information, and saw Canada Post growing more anachronistic with each passing day. The few months since the last stoppage saw a new government elected, one that some postal union workers would have supported. Budget discussions for fiscal year 2026 started, and the corporation’s income sources were on the chopping block. The union immediately worked to counter the government’s actions after the announcement of the end of home delivery. The problem for postal workers reflects the same issues workers face across a host of other sectors. Technology changes business practices, affecting costs, availability, and convenience. If cinema employees worked for a government corporation, they would confront the same challenges. Streaming services are undermining in-person movie attendance, even for films recently released. People can rent or buy new and old movies, stay at home, save money on gas and concessions, all while sitting on their comfortable furniture. Canada Post faces a dilemma.
The corporation lost a billion dollars last year, and accountants suggest it could rise to a billion and a half this year. As Andrew Coyne put it on CBC’s At Issue panel, “Yeah, I mean, listening to management and labour, what’s that old line about two bald men fighting over a comb? The union seems to think that the purpose of Canada Post is to provide them with things to do, and regardless of what the cost is to the taxpayer, the cost to the consumer…the losses mount, and the union is just in this kind of never-never land where nothing has happened.” Canada Post may not realize this, but there may be another entity that can provide postal service in its place. A monopoly exists, but Canada Post refuses to meet its obligation. Countries across Europe have opened postal services to free competition. Why can’t Canada do the same?
In his report to the government tabled this summer, William Kaplan included the following preliminary comment: “In 2006, Canada Post delivered 5.5 billion letters annually; in 2023, that number dropped to 2.2 billion – and projections indicate a continuing decline. Also in 2006, a smaller number of Canadian addresses were receiving an average of seven letters per week; in 2024, that average had declined to two letters per week – and the number of addresses had increased by more than 3 million to the current 17 million-plus. Similar declines in letter mail delivery are happening in the United Kingdom, the United States, and most other countries.”
Kaplan provided several recommendations at the link below. Highlighting these ideas is:
- Amend the Postal Charter. Daily door-to-door letter mail delivery to individual addresses should be phased out, and community mailboxes established where feasible. Daily delivery to businesses should continue.
- The moratoriums on closing rural post offices and converting community mailboxes should be lifted. Canada Post already offers the Delivery Accommodation Program for Canadians unable to access community mailboxes.
- New collective agreements should include and reflect tentative contracts (subject to agreement as a whole) reached in Commission-facilitated mediation (RSMC and STDP).
- Canada Post must have the flexibility to hire part-time employees who work part-time hours to deliver parcels on weekends and assist with volume during the week.
- Negotiate changes to the Urban collective agreement. There is no justification for collective agreement provisions that preclude an employer from assigning work for hours already paid (except by voluntary overtime).
- Negotiate changes to the collective agreements. Pilot and then introduce dynamic routing. Canada Post must also be able to change routes daily to reflect volumes to avoid trapped time and overtime.
- Amend the time-consuming approval process for postage increases.
Dragging public sector unions into the 21st century will not be an enjoyable exercise, but a government running huge deficits and overseeing a corporation losing billions has no choice. How Prime Minister Mark Carney handles this hot potato will give Canadians a good idea about his ability to make hard choices and difficult decisions. Harper was prepared to do this ten years ago. Will Carney have to bow to another good Conservative Party of Canada policy? Voters may soon get the message that, instead of a pale imitation, they want the real thing.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
