Canada Post Workers Strike After Government Push to Curb Home Delivery

Canada Post’s postal workers went on a nationwide strike Thursday night after the Canadian government instructed the company to end door-to-door delivery for 4 million addresses. The strike has effectively shut down the national courier.

This is the second strike at Canada Post since late 2024, when postal workers walked off the job for four weeks during the holiday season before the government issued a back-to-work order.

As part of the proposed changes, the federal government wants to lift a ban on community mailbox conversions, authorizing the mail carrier to “convert” the addresses that still receive door-to-door delivery. Given that three-quarters of Canadians already receive mail through community, apartment or rural mailboxes, Ottawa indicates the conversions would save nearly $400 million annually.

The proposed changes will see the closure of several rural post offices and give the service more flexibility to raise prices. The service could also reduce the types of parcels delivered by air and rely more on ground transportation to save costs.

The work stoppage of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), which represents more than 50,000 postal workers across Canada, comes as the union has been mired in contract negotiations with Canada Post for almost two years over wages and part-time work.

According to Alison Layfield, vice president of product development at parcel shipping services provider ePost Global, the strike is ill-timed for retailers and logistics teams that are already knee-deep in peak holiday season planning.

“With Canada Post offline and the federal government now signaling major structural reforms—including the end of home delivery and potential closure of rural post offices—brands are being forced to rethink how they serve Canadian consumers in both the short- and long-term,” Layfield said. “Delays are one issue, but the real concern is sustained instability: missed SLAs, stranded PO box shipments, and rising pressure on private carriers. Retailers need to act quickly to diversify their delivery networks, especially for rural and cross-border fulfillment.”

The strike comes as the struggling last-mile delivery firm is in financial disarray, with transformation minister Joel Lightbound echoing a government-established commission’s May report that Canada Post is “facing an existential crisis.”

“This situation is unsustainable,” said Lightbound. “Canada Post is effectively insolvent, and repeated bailouts are not a long-term solution. Transformation is required to ensure the survival of Canada Post and protect the services Canadians rely on.”

For the first six months of the year, loss before tax totaled $448 million Canadian dollars ($321 million), with the Canadian Crown corporation accumulating more than $5 billion ($3.6 billion) in losses since 2018.

The losses have largely come because of a significant drop in letter mail delivery, which has plummeted from 5.5 billion letters in 2006 to roughly 2 billion in 2025. Market share of parcel delivery has dwindled massively in an even quicker timeframe, from 62 percent in 2019 to 24 percent this year.

Despite getting a cash infusion of $1 billion ($717 million) to keep the company afloat in 2025, Canada Post hasn’t stopped the bleeding, with Lightbound indicating that it is losing roughly $10 million ($717,000) every day.

“We’re disappointed that the union chose to escalate their strike activity, which will further deteriorate Canada Post’s financial situation,” said Canada Post in a statement. “We understand that this latest update significantly impacts your business.”

The CUPW, which had already been critical of the commission’s report and claimed its decisions were favoring Canada Post, called the announcement from Lightbound “an outrage.”

“Minister Lightbound gave the union no indication that he was going to do this when leadership met with him last week. The minister said he had the ‘utmost respect’ for postal workers. This is no way to show it,” said CUPW national president Jan Simpson. “The minister emphasized the importance to serve all Canadians, but these recommendations will only undermine public service. We have no details on how any of them will be implemented.”

Mail and parcels will not be processed or delivered for the duration of the national strike, and some post offices will be closed, the national carrier said.

Service guarantees are suspended for items already in the postal network. Canada Post has notified customers that their scheduled pickups have been cancelled. No new items will be accepted until the national disruption is over.

The courier warned that a national strike of any length will impact service to Canadians and businesses well after the strike activity ends.

In his Thursday statement, Simpson said converting more addresses to community mailboxes “makes little sense when customers want their parcels to the door” and ignores how changes to delivery standards could impact mail volumes and confidence in service.

“These recommendations could result in major job losses,” said Simpson.

Processing and delivery may take some time to fully return to normal, Canada Post said.

The CUPW had recently shifted its labor action, pivoting from a national ban on working overtime hours to instead halting the delivery of unaddressed direct mail. These “Neighbourhood Mail” items included business cards, self-mailers, business flyers, catalogs and postcards.