As Canada Post’s labor union begins a vote Monday to ratify a tentative five-year contract, the national courier is spinning the wheels to begin its transformation, which will see 4 million door-to-door addresses converted to community mailboxes.
Those conversions are expected to save Canada Post $400 million Canadian dollars ($293.2 million) as the delivery firm aims to buck years of significant financial setbacks that have brought it to insolvency. Like its U.S. counterpart, Canada Post has remained an unprofitable endeavor that has burned cash for years, incurring more than $5.5 billion ($4 billion) in operating losses since 2018.
Canada Post is implementing the changes after a federal inquiry recommended the changes be made last year, followed by the government’s instruction.
The Crown corporation is initiating discussions with 13 communities across Canada as it prepares to begin converting approximately 136,000 addresses from door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes in late 2026 and early 2027.
Converting an address from door-to-door delivery to a community mailbox typically takes months, Canada Post said. Overall, the conversion across the country will take about five years.
The discussions are anticipated to help the postal service identify suitable locations for community mailbox sites across each community, as well as notify residents ahead of the upcoming changes.
Nearly three-fourths of Canadian addresses already receive mail and parcels through some form of centralized delivery, whether it be a community mailbox, a PO box or via an apartment or condo.
Only 23 percent of Canadian residents get door-to-door delivery. Canada Post says the conversion away from door-to-door helps create a more consistent level of service nationwide.
Most of the addresses selected for this phase of conversion are adjacent to areas that already receive delivery to community mailboxes, Canada Post says.
As part of the multi-year program, the courier is also starting what it calls its “retail modernization” process, in which it will gather and evaluate data of local post offices to get a better idea of which locations should be closed.
Those shifts are occurring as Canadians visit the country’s post offices less frequently, with the company seeing a 30 percent drop in revenue generated from consumer-facing services in those locations since 2021.
The firm says it will first begin shuttering facilities in urban and suburban areas that are currently overserved.
Last year, the federal government ended a decades-long moratorium on rural post office closures, a move that sparked concern about the future of mail delivery in remote communities that aren’t well served by private couriers.
Canada Post is making the changes after hosting meetings with union officials as both parties try to iron out a long-term deal for the labor group.
The 56,000 employees represented by Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) can vote on whether to ratify an agreement with the courier until May 30.
Although the parties came to tentative agreements in late December that cover both the company’s urban unit and rural and suburban segments until Jan. 31, 2029, union members have been largely divided on whether they want to move a new deal forward.
While three of the union’s five national executive board members endorsed the contract saying it ensures job security, CUPW president Jan Simpson is one of the two board representatives asking members to reject the deal, saying it rolls back rights and compensation.
Both sides have agreed not to engage in any strike or lockout activity while the ratification votes take place, though employees are also casting ballots on whether to authorize a strike mandate, in case they reject the contract.
The proposed five-year agreement includes wage increases of 6.5 percent and 3 percent in the first two years, before increasing to match inflation in the final three years.
Contract negotiations have been ongoing for nearly two-and-a-half years, with talks officially starting November 2023. The CUPW went on strike for four weeks during 2024’s peak holiday season, before the government issued a back-to-work order.
The union took multiple labor actions during 2025, including instituting a national ban on overtime work and later halting the delivery of unaddressed direct “Neighbourhood Mail” items like business cards, post cards and catalogs.
Last September, the labor group switched gears again, walking off the job nationwide for three weeks before scaling it back to a rotating strike. The rotating work stoppage lingered through November, when the first iteration of the tentative deal was agreed upon in principle.
