Canada Post doesn’t deserve any more taxpayer cash. The Carney government decided to give it a $1.01-billion loan anyway.
That’s in addition to the $1.03 billion Canada Post received from taxpayers just 13 short months ago.
For months, Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement Minister Joël Lightbound has been saying fundamental change at Canada Post is needed.
To that effect, Public Services and Procurement Canada put out a statement calling for change last week.
“While Canada Post’s legislative mandate requires it to be financially self-sustaining, the corporation has accumulated significant losses in recent years, making clear that maintaining the status quo is not an option and that a clear plan is needed to restore long-term stability,” reads the statement.
If that statement sounds familiar, that’s because it is.
Back in September 2025, Lightbound issued a similarly stark statement.
“Canada Post is effectively insolvent,” said Lightbound. “Transformation is required to ensure the survival of Canada Post and protect the services Canadians rely on.”
What’s happened between September and now? Babkas.
The Carney government is all talk and no action on the Canada Post file. Knowing the Canada Post has lost upwards of $1 billion for several years now, with the situation only worsening, the Carney government should be taking urgent action.
Instead, the government went out and issued yet another billion-dollar loan. It’s merely paying lip service to real change.
The time has come for those in government to have the backbone to embrace the only real solution to the present Canada Post fiasco: privatization.
Lightbound spoke in the fall about ideas like shifting all Canadians to communal mailboxes, sending more mail via ground shipping, and closing some formerly rural post offices that have become suburban.
But all of his proposed solutions would save roughly $400 million a year, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the stark change that is needed to right Canada Post’s fiscal ship today.
The truth that bureaucrats and politicians in Ottawa don’t want to hear is this: Canada Post’s current infrastructure and staff were built to deliver 5.5 billion letters a year. But today, Canada Post is delivering less than half of that.
There’s no minor course correction to fix such a fundamental flaw within Canada Post’s current business model.
The only real solution here is privatization. It has worked for country after country in Europe, turning failing postal services into well-run organizations that deliver sound customer service and actually run profits.
European nations ranging from Austria to Belgium to Germany to Sweden – and many others – all privatized their government-run postal services years ago. In country after country, the move has proven to be a success.
Deutsche Post in Germany is the perfect example of a privatization success story. It posts healthy profits and is rated year after year as one of the best postal services in the world. Studies have shown it continues to perform light-years ahead of Canada Post, even though it is a private entity.
Some will always reflexively oppose the idea of privatization. But if you look at the facts across Europe, private postal services have been a huge success story.
The time for action is now. Canada Post cannot continue to operate in its current form. And all of the federal government’s proposed solutions, which still have yet to be acted upon, won’t save the sinking ship.
Anything short of full privatization will simply mean more bailouts that taxpayers cannot afford.
It’s time to transform Canada Post into a more efficient, effective, and consumer-focused organization. And that means privatization.
Jay Goldberg is the Canadian Affairs Manager at the Consumer Choice Center. He previously served as the Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and a policy fellow at the Munk School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Jay holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto.
