Canada Post revenue has dropped $386-million in the third quarter, compared with the same period in 2024.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The agenda for Canada Post’s annual meeting on Tuesday was an update on financial results for the first nine months of the year, but what officials had to say had the ring of a soon-to-be-delivered eulogy.
The postal service is “effectively insolvent,” said chief financial officer Rindala El-Hage. For the uninitiated, a confession of bankruptcy is not the ideal thrust of a speech for a CFO to deliver at an annual meeting.
Ms. El-Hage’s bluntness was completely justified. Canada Post, already struggling before this year’s protracted labour dispute, looks to be in financial freefall now.
In the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, its core postal operations incurred a pre-tax loss of $989-million, as revenue dropped $386-million from the same period in 2024. Including all parts of its business, Canada Post recorded a $541-million loss in the third quarter of 2025, its largest quarterly loss to date. The corporation is headed for an annual loss “significantly larger” than any other in its history.
Canada Post expects to lose 30,000 jobs to retirement, voluntary departures by 2035
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers can take a good chunk of responsibility for the accelerating deterioration of Canada Post. The six-month-old labour disruption, along with last year’s Christmas-timed strike, has sped up the exodus of customers, perhaps permanently.
Even more ominously, the Crown corporation said it expects to burn through its $1.034-billion emergency loan from Ottawa by Dec. 31. Those funds were supposed to last through to the end of the federal government’s fiscal year on March 31.
“Effectively insolvent” is not wrong, but “hitting the wall at full speed” might be a bit more on point. The Liberals’ culpability in this debacle should never be forgotten. A decade ago, the Trudeau government killed plans that would have allowed for the gradual restructuring of Canada Post and avoided much of today’s turmoil.
The corporation, at the government’s request, presented a turnaround plan earlier this month. The details are under wraps, but the broad thrust is well known: ending home delivery beyond limited exceptions, and (gasp!) adjusting delivery routes depending on that day’s volume of mail and parcels. Those steps are unavoidable at a time when letter mail volumes continue to shrink, and competition for parcel delivery is growing.
In response, CUPW has floated ideas such as transforming mail carriers into faux social workers who perform wellness checks on housebound seniors, and launching a national banking service through the post office. (But why stop there? Why not a national telegraph service, or a side hustle of video-cassette rentals?)
Canada Post says it presented overhaul plan to Ottawa, waiting for sign-off
Those are deeply unserious proposals from a union that refuses to recognize the reality that the business that underpins the jobs of their workers is withering. That its actions are further damaging that business, and heightening the threat to the jobs of its members.
Any move to reform Canada Post’s operations will necessarily entail job losses, the majority of which the corporation expects to achieve through attrition – in part because of the ironclad job security for unionized workers with at least five years of continuous employment.
Canada Post’s aging work force may provide a solution. Nearly half of the unionized workforce of 62,000 is slated to retire in the next decade: 16,000 by 2030 and another 14,000 by 2035. So, there is a possibility of a relatively measured downsizing, if the restructuring can start before the labour dispute drives too many customers away.
It seems a foregone conclusion that the federal government will need to float Canada Post another loan.
As a self-financing Crown corporation, Canada Post is obligated to repay those funds. Ottawa should make it crystal clear that it will not issue any waiver, that it will hold the corporation (and by extension, CUPW) to that obligation.
Canada Post and CUPW reached agreements in principle late Friday. The union has agreed to suspend its job action while the tentative collective agreements are finalized and, hopefully, ratified. Every day of delay means a smaller Canada Post and fewer jobs.
The outlines of the agreement weren’t made public, but a four-year agreement would represent a breakthrough of sorts. The last four-year agreement between Canada Post and CUPW was signed 18 years ago.
It now seems possible that the union has now acceded to reality. If not, Ottawa will need to take further action to ensure the stability and viability of what remains of the national postal service.