This past Thursday, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) resumed their strike in response to the proposal announced by Joël Lightbound (Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement) regarding the future of Canada Post.
According to the CUPW website’s update, Lightbound’s proposed changes to Canada Post are in line with William Kaplan’s Industrial Inquiry Commission (IIC) Report recommendations from this past spring. These changes include allowing the Crown Corporation to convert 4 million addresses to Community Mailboxes; allowing the closure of post offices in rural communities; allowing the Corporation more “flexibility” in delivery policy such as reducing the 5 days-a-week delivery requirement; and increasing stamp prices. These changes would result in large job losses and decreased accessibility to postal services for Canadians, which directly impact rural and low-income communities, as well as small businesses that rely on public postal services.
Anti-worker narratives contradict themselves
CTV News Ottawa is one of many news outlets antagonizing postal workers’ right to strike using arguments about Canada Post’s “revenue loss” and its responsibility for the decline of small businesses. The President and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), Dan Kelly, repeats the narrative that “Canada Post is losing $10 million every day, and this change [Lightbound’s proposal] could save $400 million a year.”
In collaboration with the Canadian government, Canada Post is using these narratives to exploit the frustrations of small businesses and community organizations and redirect anger towards the workers. With this rhetoric circulating repeatedly around the resumed postal strike, which was last in effect December 2024, the general public opinion continues to be negative towards postal workers’ right to strike.
Contrarily, news outlets such as CP24 and Global News illustrate Canada Post as a vital community service, citing the strike as an interruption to the delivery of local community newspaper delivery and food banks. In his address, Minister Lightbound himself even stressed the importance of the public mail system, saying, “the last thing that we need is a major chunk of Canada’s transportation infrastructure out for months at a time.” The media and government want us to believe that Canada Post is both an inefficient waste of money that we can do without and also a vital part of our country’s infrastructure that must not shut down for a labour disruption. Either way, their goal is the same: to make sure that workers bear the brunt of the blame for Canada Post’s shortcomings.
The truth about “profitability”
Despite being labelled as an obsolete service, with Minister Lightbound reporting losses beginning in 2020-2021 during the lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic, CUPW Local 548 grievance officer, Jeeva, reports that during lockdowns:
“Senior workers would tell us they’ve never seen volumes like this in their thirty, thirty-five years. Sixteen hours a day you could work, seven days a week. I remember working four months straight, seven days a week…They didn’t have space for all the parcels that were coming in.”
While Canada Post was indeed profitable, Jeeva urges that:
“Public service shouldn’t be expected to make profit. Before this current CEO was in power, the post office was profitable almost every year. Ever since Doug Ettinger has become CEO, Canada Post has been losing money every single year since 2019. What does that say?”
In the 2024 Federal Budget, the Canadian government reported an actual expenditure of $26.9 billion in 2022 on National Defence, which is jumping to a predicted $44.2 billion this year, in 2025. Other public services like the Canadian Armed Forces are clearly not up for debate for their lucrativeness—nobody would say that the Canadian Armed Forces “lost” $26.9 billion in 2022 and are set to lose $44.2 billion this year—but rather are held as a vital part of Canada’s social and economic function.
Another wrinkle in the narrative of Canada Post’s “unprofitability” is the little-known fact that Canada Post owns 91% of Purolator. Additionally, Global News discretely reports that “CUPW has argued that Canada Post’s claims of dire finances are overblown and could be solved with increasing stamp rates and reducing management staffing and salaries,” and that Lightbound is looking toward addressing these changes as well to transform the future of Canada.
Postal banking: a possible way forward
In response to the discussion posed by the Crown Corporation for changing Canada Post, CUPW cites postal banking as the future of mail service.
Postal banking is a resource that can be offered through a post office for financial and banking services. Postal banking seeks to reallocate revenue back toward government services, such as education and healthcare.
Postal banking was a part of Canadian legislation until 1969, and remains integral in the economies of countries including Italy, Switzerland, Brazil, and France. In a 2022 article about a postal banking pilot loan program in partnership with TD Bank Group, CUPW President Jan Simpson told the CBC that postal banking requires workers to ensure the success of the pilot program and assist with corporate debt, which in turn contributes to the job economy with unionized work, and put the interests of the public first.
It is critical that workers stand in solidarity to assist CUPW in debunking the misinformation and rhetoric being spread by the Corporation. CUPW’s Postal Banking Fact Sheet is a useful tool in pushing forward the future of keeping the post office public and accessible to all.
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