Canada Post defends transformation plan after record $1.57 billion in losses

Canada Post workers are preparing to vote on proposed  five-year contract with the Crown Corporation.

With Canada Post reporting a record $1.57 billion in losses before tax in 2025, the Crown corporation says it’s moving ahead with a transformation plan that will shutter some post offices and eliminate home mail delivery for approximately four million Canadian households.

“The government has made it clear that the future is not going to be funded by the taxpayer, and that is not what we want at all,” Canada Post spokesperson Jon Hamilton told CTV News Channel on Monday.

“We do not want to be reliant on the taxpayer. We want to return to our original mandate to serve all Canadians and do it in a self-sustaining manner. But in order to do that, we need to make these changes.”

Hamilton is Canada Post’s vice-president of communications and stakeholder engagement. He describes Canada Post’s recent financial losses as “staggering.”

“People understand that mail has been in decline while we’ve had to serve more and more addresses every year,” Hamilton said. “But if you look at last year, the uncertainty because of our labour situation really dragged down our parcel business.”

‘We need to make major changes’

Postal workers went on strike in late 2024 and again in 2025 over issues like wages and proposed structural changes. While Canada Post workers started voting on a new five-year contract agreement on Monday, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ (CUPW) president has urged members to reject the deal.

“We’re hopeful that they’ll vote in favour of the agreement,” Hamilton said. “That would allow us to provide certainty as large retailers are making their parcel decisions in June and July for Christmas, because we’ve already lost out on the last two Christmases.”

Hamilton says the Crown corporation’s transformation is already underway. Beginning in late 2026 and early 2027, roughly 136,000 addresses across the country will switch from home mail delivery to community mailboxes.

“We need to make major changes because we have to line our network and what we do to what Canadians are looking for today,” Hamilton said. “They want less mail service, it’s still important, but they want a more convenient parcel delivery service. And in our collective agreements that we’ve negotiated [there] would be weekend parcel service, which we’re the only ones in the game that can’t provide that.”

While Canada Post reported record losses last year, Purolator – a courier company that Canada Post owns a majority stake in – posted $256 million in profits before taxes. Purolator workers are represented by a different union and did not go on strike.

“I think last year’s results really underscore how difficult it is to compete in today’s parcel market with labour uncertainty,” Hamilton added. “Our parcels went to those companies that can provide certainty and also convenience that we can’t provide, so that was the big reason behind the huge revenue drop.”

With files from The Canadian Press