Canada Post Planning Layoffs & Service Cuts?

Dec. 19, 2025

What’s the Way Forward for Canada Post?

Its CEO says ending door-to-door deliveries is part of a plan to save the corporation. But the union wants to expand services.

Canada Post’s path forward includes job cuts, changes to service and a cash injection from the federal government, CEO Doug Ettinger told a committee of MPs last Thursday.

Ettinger delivered his full plan to Government Transformation Minister Joël Lightbound last month.

The CEO told the committee last week he would not share the full details of the plan publicly until Lightbound finishes reviewing it. Ettinger added it’s not clear how long that might take.

Instead, Ettinger offered the committee some of the plan’s key points. They include ending door-to-door delivery in favour of community mailboxes, delivering standard letter mail less frequently and reducing the size of the postal service in an effort to “break even” by 2030.

“The key thing for me is that we’re moving forward,” Ettinger said. “Would it have helped if it was years ago? Of course.”

He confirmed that the Crown corporation is in talks with the federal government to get a loan but did not specify how much money the company is seeking.

“There’s no magic potion that’s going to get us to the next place,” Ettinger said. “But trust me, these are big opportunities for us. We’re ready to move on them now, and we have the team ready to roll.”

He added the plan is in line with the recommendations that commissioner William Kaplan made earlier this year — called the “Kaplan report” — after an industrial inquiry into Canada Post.

The plan comes amid a tense round of negotiations. Collective bargaining for new contracts for approximately 55,000 workers started in November 2023.

More than two years later, Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers still do not have tentative agreements for the urban and rural bargaining units.

Negotiations have been largely stalled over how the corporation plans to address its increasingly dire financial position. The Kaplan report and a panel of business researchers told Parliament the service would need to radically shift its service toward parcel delivery and cut nearly a third of its workforce.

Meanwhile, the union has rallied for service expansion instead of cuts in an effort to protect members’ jobs and prevent the corporation from creating more part-time, flexible work.

Canadian Union of Postal Workers national president Jan Simpson said in a Dec. 16 statement that CUPW planned to fight back against Ettinger’s planned cuts to service and jobs.

“While we certainly support the idea of growing Canada Post’s share of the parcel market, we still question the need for cuts when the timeline to return to sustainability was given as 2030 — more than enough time to create new revenue generating services,” Simpson said.

She added that job cuts would have negative impacts on Canada Post’s existing services and called for Ettinger’s plan to incorporate more public feedback.

The union has previously called on Canada Post to expand its service to include grocery delivery, financial services and senior check-in services.

The corporation reports being effectively insolvent after posting significant losses for the better part of the last decade.

For example, in 2024 Canada Post had $6.1 billion in revenue and $446 million in net investing income. It spent $7.4 billion the same year, leaving a loss before tax of $841 million.

Earlier this year, the federal government gave Canada Post a $1-billion loan to bail the company out. Ettinger said the corporation still plans to repay the loan — but that it may be seeking another.

Canada Post chief financial officer Rindala El-Hage told the parliamentary committee that as of this month, the company had run out of that money. She said the corporation was in talks with the federal government for an additional loan.

“The discussion that we’re having with the minister’s office at this point in time is not yet finalized,” she said. “We’re working through the details to ensure that we have sufficient funding to maintain operation and service to Canadians.”

The postal service’s primary cost is labour. According to Canada Post’s annual financial report, labour and benefits account for about 65 per cent of spending.

“We’re going to need to be a leaner organization,” Ettinger told the MPs. “Canadians are using us very differently than they did 40 years ago and we need to adapt to that.”

He said he plans to achieve cuts “primarily through attrition.”

The corporation employs 16,000 people eligible to retire in the next five years, with 14,000 more eligible for retirement in the five years after. In total, that’s more than half of the 55,000 workers represented by CUPW.

When Bloc Québécois Laurentides-Labelle MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau asked Ettinger how many cuts would be achieved by layoffs, Ettinger did not explicitly rule them out.

“We’re going to try to do everything we can to have minimum impact on our employees and treat them with respect,” he said.

Ettinger added that in the past year and a half, Canada Post has cut management by 11 per cent and executives by 20 per cent.

In February, the company fired three senior executives, including its previous chief financial officer, and cut two vacant executive roles.

Ettinger said the company will also save money by delivering to community mailboxes instead of door to door, with a delivery accommodation program for Canadians with mobility challenges.

Canada Post will also reduce how frequently the postal service delivers standard letter mail, Ettinger said, which means it can move mail across Canada using ground transportation instead of air.

He added Canada Post will continue offering urgent mail delivery options and will still ship parcels by plane.

He said more details about both changes will be made public after Minister Lightbound finishes examining his plan.

This year’s federal budget also eliminated restrictions preventing Canada Post from increasing its postage rates.

Ettinger said he plans to present his full report when the federal Liberal government finishes looking at it and offers feedback. He said it’s not clear when that might happen.

With these changes, Ettinger said the company will be able to break even in the next five years. He did not say whether that included repaying loans from the federal government.

“It won’t be easy, but we’re going to work hard to earn back the trust of our consumers and our customers,” he said. “We believe we now have the tools to do that.” 

[Top photo: Slotted for changes? Canada Post needs to cut jobs and shrink services while getting more federal cash, CEO Doug Ettinger told a committee of MPs last Thursday. Photo by Ethan Cairns, the Canadian Press.]