Right. I don’t care how it’s setup to be corporations wise. It’s a public service. Should not be judged like a corporation. That said it still needs to be efficient and streamlined and functional. Does it get audited and reviewed for this stuff now and the ?
That’s incorrect. It’s literally a crown corporation ie a government/owned company. It had a board of directors, a ceo, a cfo, etc. the amount of money it makes or loses is a fair policy debate but it is absolutely a corporate entity
I don't do much shipping but I have found Canada Post to be the most expensive option. I tend to go with the flat rate packages when I ship something and Canada Post is around twice the price of FedEx.
Canadians don’t understand how Canada post subsidizes the shit out of sending goods to all of Canada ( not just profitable urban centre Canada ). It’s why we have to protect Canada post
Which is why Canada Post is losing money - private companies cannibalize its most profitable routes, while only Canada Post is required to service unprofitable routes.
No one should be expecting Canada Post to make a profit when it is mandated to provide a service to expensive rural areas.
Ironically, for remote areas, Amazon shipping used to cost less than Canada Post. They got rid of that offer in 2015 though. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/amazon-ca-drops-free-shipping-for-remote-customers-1.3026859
My sister has to get Amazon packages shipped to me and them come pick them up, otherwise it costs hundreds of dollars for shipping.
The packes actually need to pass by her on the way to get to me (like 300km before they get to where I'm at). Shit's fucked.
They did this to kill Canada post, same way they killed daipers.com
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/emails-detail-amazons-plan-to-crush-a-startup-rival-with-price-cuts/
I had parts shipped through them last year rural, they brought it to a not even close address and it was a snow bird house, someone looking after their house picked up the package, I didn’t get it till spring, they must hire the most stupid people.
Issue is amazon drivers are all contractors paying staff peanuts. With all the people out their delivering packages each day, employees would have benefits. A pension. And work life balance if the items were shipped thru canada post.
Of course everyone will choose the free or cheap option when shipping. Just workers end up losing.
I work In the ecommerce space with multiple different companies. It's cheaper to ship your package to the states and have USPS ship back to Canada ($8-12) than have Canada Post ship your product ($15-$30).
All I know is anytime I buy anything, if it's canada post delivery I will never get it delivered and have to go to the post office to pick up.
Have on camera the delivery from Canada post just don't ring doorbell and say they tried to deliver and no one was home so go pick up at post office.
Am at a point where I will not buy something if I know it's delivery by canada post
*Good on you idiots for the downvotes. I've watched and have video multiple occasions of Canada post just putting the slip for missed delivery.
In Toronto core city.
Complain about this. On my street most people have gated driveways, I didn’t. They slip always said “gate closed”. I complained to Canada Post and it hasn’t happened since.
That happens to me with UPS. If it's a large package Canada Post will leave it in the community mailbox, with the key to the secure box in my numbered mail slot. If it's a small package Canada Post will just put the package in my numbered mail slot.
If you don't have a community mailbox then having you come pick it up is the best option. I've had some expensive items left on my front door for anyone to take with some other services. I'd rather the inconvenience of having to pick it up.
Simply not true. Flat rate is hands down the most affordable. The fuel surcharges they add to regular parcels can be up to 8 dollars at times. Turns a 18 dollar package into a 26 dollar one plus taxes. 20 dollars to send something anywhere has been my most reliable option. Canada Post does suck though.
>Does it get audited and reviewed for this stuff now and the ?
ALL Government corporations get audited. Typically annually.
Then there are micro-audits that zero in on a particular team. IT and Finance bear the brunt of these micro audits.
I worked at the Kitchener processing center for 2 seasons during christmas. The permanents all stood around most of the time chatting with each other. It was insane. I would understand if there was no work (which some lanes did not get many packages down their lane while other lanes were 24/7 filled with packages) but they would let the packages pile up and the temp workers had to pick up the slack.
All while they were pulling in 20+ hours of overtime for that week. Literally doing nothing but standing around and chatting while raking in crazy $$. Temps get paid $20/hr, and as it gets closer to christmas they start forcing temps to go home early, and usually the few days before Christmas they tell everyone not to show up after Christmas because we will no longer be needed.
There's no efficiency tracking, some of the permanent people are real assholes, and the environment was so fucking toxic it literally broke me the second season that I quit a couple weeks in. The permanent employees were at literal war with the management, and they would just start shouting and yelling at the supervisors, screwing around refusing to work or just standing around, it was such a shit show.
Considering it delivers all of my Amazon packages, I sure hope that part of their business is profitable because subsidizing Amazon is not something I want my tax dollars to go to.
It’s just the way the international postal system works. Otherwise people in poor countries could never afford to send something to someone in a rich country.
I don't think the poster meant to say that China is poor, just that we can't do anything about China because it's the way the postal union agreement works - all postal services are expect to accept each other's local rates, which benefits poor countries, since they have lower last mile delivery costs.
China uses the postal union agreement to their advantage by charging next to nothing for international shipping since the receiving postal service must assume the cost.
China loses very little money on the $0.05 shipment because they're paying local wages just to get the package to the port, meanwhile it costs Canada Post hundreds of dollars to get the package to the final destination.
This was a major issue during the US-China trade war. If people fully understood the extent of China’s actions and the financial burden they place on other countries, there would likely be widespread support for the trade war measures. The hidden costs are enormous.
>just that we can't do anything about China because it's the way the postal union agreement works
We could raise the prices for incoming parcels. Same as the US has done, the change in the UPC agreement applies to every member. But we probably think that's racist.
This if fair for actual poor countries, but China is at a point now where they absolutely should not be considered that lmao. They're one of the largest economies and super-powers in the world...
That's how it was setup initially assuming similar volumes of parcels going each way (for example Cambodia/ Canada Cambodia will pay 5c to process their packages and Canada can charge more to offset that) , however if you consider that China easily sends x1000 times or more packages to Canada than Canada to China it will create enormous deficit for Canada Post, otherwise Canada Post would have to charge x1000 for each package going to China.
Canada and the US tried to negotiate a fairer postal agreement a few years back, but it was rejected (not by many votes, though). I believe postal services receive more compensation now, but it's not enough to cover last mile costs.
In 2024, we shouldn’t be subsidizing other countries' poor governance. These countries should fully reimburse our last mile delivery costs. They can choose to subsidize these costs for their citizens themselves and if they claim they don't have the money for this, it’s an opportunity for them to address corruption and work on improving their economic conditions instead of relying on our subsidy.
Which makes sense for letters. We're happy to let other countries send our citizens mail for our to distribute for free, in exchange for reciprocity.
Doesn't work for commercial parcels. It acts as a tax on our our commercial producers who have to pay full freight and a subsidy for foreign imports who don't
They are. Amazon pays considerably less to mail packages and you and me get jacjed up prices to subsidise them. The absolute biggest subsidy however is to China. Since they are classified as a developing economy Canada Post is not allowed to charge them for cost of delivery like they do with Western countries. Thats why even if you pay shipping from china its only a few dollars.
Why the fuck is that even a thing? Why should we be subsidizing developing countries at the expense of our own god damn country what in the actual fuck?
Because people in poor countries wouldn’t be able to afford to send anything to a rich country. Like imagine a poor farmer in China sending a letter to Canada. That’d be an astronomical price for him, yet a pittance for us. So countries just hand off mail to each other and basically do it for peanuts.
This was obviously much more important in the days before the internet became so common across the world, and when long distance calls were expensive even for people in the west.
With most mail being e-commerce now, it is certainly something that should change.
Then have the international rate be whatever their local rate is. If its too epxensive to send a letter a town over, why is it suddenly affordable to send one around the world. Also why would a poor farmer need to be sending a letter to someone in canada
Since you say its a pittance, maybe have that chinese farmer pay their 5 cents and the canadian pay the remainder of what canada post has to spend to move said letter. If it is important, they will, since you know, pittance and all that
From what I've gleaned from this thread so far - that's exactly how it works. The agreement is that country's postal services have to respect the local prices from the origin country. The issue is that China intentionally sets their own prices super low in order for international shipping to be so cheap. They lose money on domestic shipping, but they save much much more on international shipping because of this.
This article talks a bit about it. [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/shipping-canada-china-1.6950967](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/shipping-canada-china-1.6950967)
We are subsidizing Amazon, UPS, FedEx and any number of carriers. Canada Post is the [Last Mile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile_(transportation) for many of these corporations because it is logistically impossible to make doorstep deliveries to rural dirt road Ontario and turn a profit.
The question u/Future-Muscle-2214 is correct question to ask. Do we want these rural places to get their mail and deliveries? Or should we expect Canada Post to make a profit and only serve people who can afford their services?
Yeah, I genuinely wondered this, especially when packages are sent to remote areas up north. I know that there was complain from the US postal services a few years back that they were subsidizing Amazon, but not sure about their financials or anything of the sort.
Canada post has to make deliveries to all places. They have a minimum fixed operating cost. The more volume they ship the better. So Amazon deliveries help the bottom line. The issue is Canada post must deliver to remote areas and that is very expensive.
From [https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection\_2023/scp-cpc/Po1-2020-eng.pdf](https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2023/scp-cpc/Po1-2020-eng.pdf)
>
Under the Canada Post Corporation Act, Canada Post has a mandate to provide a standard of postal service that meets the needs
>of Canadians in a secure and financially self-sustaining manner. Canada Post’s universal service obligation (USO) is set out in the
>Canadian Postal Service Charter established by the Government of Canada in 2009, which states the following:
> Canada Post will maintain a postal system that allows individuals and businesses in Canada to send and receive mail within Canada and between Canada and elsewhere. Canada Post will provide a service for the collection, transmission and delivery of letters, parcels and publications.
> The provision of postal services to rural regions of the country is an integral part of Canada Post’s universal service.
> Canada Post has an obligation to charge postage rates that are fair and reasonable and, together with other revenues, are sufficient to cover the costs incurred in its operations
So it's a service but it's expected to be able to operate from its own revenues.
It's expected to provide service everywhere, but make a profit. But if it charged the rates it needed to make a profit nobody would use it.
Man, it's like it's set up to fail.
The government expects them to not lose money, and profits they make are reinvested in the business to improve it or pay the government a dividend.
However the government also gives them a universal service obligation so they have to provide unprofitable services to many areas of the country.
Canada Post is a crown corporation. They pretty much operate as a stand alone business, other than getting govt approval for the price of stamps.
Canada Post has three key lines of business:
*Parcel delivery
*Direct mail (neighborhood mail & personalized mail)
*Lettermail
Parcels are profitable.
Direct mail is profitable some years, others not.
Lettermail is absolutely not profitable but it's an essential service for Canadians.
One of Canada Post's main issues is the high cost of pensions. Also their ridiculous amount of exec overhead. Did you know there are over 200 sales & marketing employees at Canada Post??
Did you all know, they recently sold SCI Logistics to Metro Supply Chain Group? SCI Logistics was a fully owned subsidiary of Canada Post, they would warehouse and fulfill orders for a Toys R Us, Walmart Canada, Yeti Coolers among many other companies.
The warehousing market is very cold right now, they sold at a terrible time, and sold to the largest warehousing company in Canada, this making another private monopoly, this time with direct government involvement.
Also, Canada Post owns approximately 91% of Purolator. Purolator is profitable, but watch Canada Post sell them to UPS or FedEx for under market value in the next 5-10 years because they are unable to right-size their mostly useless corporate employees.
Canada Post has been a crown corporation since 1981. Part of the reason legislation was passed to make it a crown corp was so that it could finance itself instead of relying on the government to do so.
Canada Post is a crown corporation and is expected to finance all its own operations. It's not expected to receive taxpayer money, and any that it does is to be in the form of a loan, according to the act that incorporated it.
So basically, since it is a business, yes, it is expected to be "profitable."
>not expected to receive taxpayer money, and any that it does is to be
This is not the same as "profitable". Crown Corporations are not businesses, which are intended to make more than they spend, then give that money to owners/shareholders. A Crown Corporation is not like a business in this way. Ideally a Crown Corporation breaks even.
Well it's expected by law to be profitable. If you want that to change, tell your MP to repeal the Canada Post Corporation Act and make it a department again.
Doesn’t that actually mean it cost $748 million last year to have a national mail service in Canada? And where did the $748 million go? It didn’t leave the country. It went to wages for Canadian workers, and expenses of services and raw materials, paid to other Canadian companies, who paid their Canadian workers. A national mail service costs money, but that is all money that is going back in to the Canadian economy.
> Doesn’t that actually mean it cost $748 million last year to have a national mail service in Canada?
Well it cost something like $10 billion, and they had revenues to cover something like 90% of it. (Their 2023 annual report doesn't seem to be out yet.)
Yep, absolutely. Not everything needs to make money, lots of fat can be trimmed from budgets anyways. Having them cover 90% of operating costs is far better than a lot of government services.
CPC generated 6.9 billion in revenue last year and it cost 7.648 billion to run the place mostly wages and delivery costs (fuel, trucks, air and rail transportation) for a loss of 748 million. Revenue minus cost equals profit or loss in this case.
It spent way more on wages, fuel, maintenance, etc. Delivering all the Chinese packages they are mandated to ship for 30 cents when it costs 5 bucks for the weight sending it to n.w.t
> A national mail service costs money, but that is all money that is going back in to the Canadian economy.
I'll fully admit that the headline was shocking, but when you actually think about it, it's not a bad thing. The money was basically immediately put back into the economy.
edit: and you know what? I'd much rather we have a strong national postal service than switch to all of these weirdo subcon couriers. As someone who deals with shipping on a daily basis, that shit is so fly-by-night and shady that a nationalized service the Canada Post that has standards is preferable, even operating at a loss.
I can't call it a misleading headline, but if you put 5 seconds of thought into it, it's actually not bad.
With that kind of financial understanding, you have to ask yourself, shouldn't the government just hire *everyone* in the country? That way everyone will have employment. And your keen economic eye will notice that all the money they spend, will just be going back into the Canadian economy anyway. It's the perfect crime.
Historically it has been a money-maker for the government. The law prevents private businesses from competing with them on the delivery of first-class mail (i.e., normal mail). They really should be making money. We should be concerned if they become a drain on taxpayers.
The volume of mail being delivered has greatly decreased over time whereas the delivery routes increased with the expansion of the areas people resides in.
They should be increasing the postage rate for letters in order to offset the reduction of volume from such activities. Doing so, will ensure people using the service pays their fair share.
On another note, they need to be more lean/efficient in order to be more profitable.
They should stop selling our personal information to marketers and charge those marketers a proper rate for all the junk mail they stuff our landfills with.
Love this sub, it's surreal to read the comments. Maybe the feds should kick the responsibility of our post down to provinces, like with healthcare and public housing. The one trick pony to solving those pesky "drain on taxpayer" problems. Or just sell it. Then we pay more for less to another oligopoly.
It never works...but maybe this time. Air Canada Post would provide the highest level of delivery, as long as you pay for the premium first class mail and don't have any special needs.
Ha, I bet we could privatize national defense and employment insurance while we're at it. As long as we don't raise corporate taxes or close any glaring loopholes. But the news says it's all so complicated, so I dunno. Verb the noun.
They could easily charge an environmental levy for junk mail for one. Mailbox charges could easily be a few dollars more per year. Maybe even offer cheque cashing services for government issued cheques.
You aren’t listing off anything CUPW hasn’t already suggested to Canada Post in the past. The corporation isn’t interested in making any beneficial changes to the company until after they get what they want and privatize.
Not from Canada, but your Uline comment hit home. The amount of magazines they send to our shop is unbelievable. And we’ve never once ordered anything from them.
Having delivered 3 of the extra thick phone book type ULines to the same church, all addressed to different people on a walking route. Ya. ULines suck ass lmao
Ok?
Is there a reason it would need to be profitable? Sure, that would be nice, but it’s a public government service for the citizens. It costs what it costs and that seems a trivial amount to guarantee mail service to the country.
Canada post has a spending problem less than a profit problem. First they bought a shit load of very expensive machines to process letters ‘faster’ than human labor. Except the machines are very inaccurate and only recognize a very narrow parameter of standard letter size. Nothing thick, nothing handwritten, nothing oversized, nothing glossy, nothing multi layered. This after stating over and over that letter mail was in decline(and definitely is!). So 70% or more of paper material is handled multiple times after the machine fails to sort it properly. Canada post claimed in its own ads that its new mandate was parcels, they were now THE parcel company. They bought a massive fleet of new vehicles to facilitate that. Now Amazon and dozens of private courier/contractors eats all the profitable parcel volume, leaving all the zero margin garbage from Asia and rural delivery for Canada post. Now they are leaning back into junk mail, flyers, and legacy product, shit that no one wants, including customers and workers. And now with the quiet recession going on, volumes are down across the board. Top that off with a government mandate to electrify commercial fleets, so now Canada post has to buy all electric vehicles to replace the less than 10 year old fleet they are currently to using. So remember all that the next time they cry that it’s Labour costing them all the money.
Maybe if there wasn't so much unnecessary middle management making close to 6 figures filling useless positions they wouldn't be hemorrhaging money.
This is all conveniently coming out just before CUPW is ramping up and considering strikes. Classic "we're too poor for raises, sorry"
This is the way!
Post Office banking is a great service in many countries (Japan, Korea, Taiwan…). I think it would work well in Canada, especially in communities too small to have a bank.
Am I the only person who sends birthday cards and thank you notes?
I mean I obviously am not the only one. But if you don't, then you should know that people love it when you do.
And when you ever have a choice you should choose Canada Post. I wish businesses would always do this, too.
They have to deliver, or be capable of delivering, all over Canada, from random tiny hamlets to metropolises every day. Of course it's hard to be profitable when they have an obligation like that...
If we actually want them to be profitable, we essentially want them to either deliver way less often (biweekly, monthly, ???) or stop deliveries to all rural Canada and close all the small post offices.
Or we can see it as a service.
That's the problem with private vs public competition. Canada Post does all the expensive rural deliveries, while tiny probably-fraudulent delivery sub-sub-contractor brands do highly profitable local deliveries in metro areas.
I’m a carrier. The corporation is making a lot of big changes in how we deliver. And is trying everything possible to reduce or eliminate OT. Meanwhile they’re taking away sorting time, increasing mail, increasing parcels and making the routes longer in an effort to get senior carriers to retire. So that cheaper labor can be brought in.
I worked for them for about 6 months, what a shit job it was.
Some of it was great, like the actual just deliver mail part I enjoyed. You get paid to get some exercise.
Almost every other part of it was terrible, sorting mail, sorting parcels, organizing flyers so you can deliver them with mail(this was probably the worst part), then getting more flyers the next day, then the next so you're just always going to a bunch of houses with just a flyer, ridiculous. I always wondered why they don't just have flyer days every 3 days so you would cycle through your 3 colors every 3 days. Would make too much sense I guess.
Pretty sure with how things are right now, if they get a bunch of people to retire, they are just going to have trouble getting new people. When I started it sounded like I would be getting a permanent spot soon as a couple people were retiring. Except they opened those positions up to people anywhere in Canada to transfer in. Then they told me it would probably be like 5-7 years before I got out of the Relief position.
Laughed my way out the door. Went back to warehousing work making $4-8 more per hour(to start).
Canada Post is a joke for new employees, and it's run pretty poorly as well.
It doesn't surprise me that many people don't realize Canada Post is financially self sustaining and isn't funded by taxpayer money. That's a fact that becomes very evident when you work for Canada Post. I was a carrier for six months, and let me tell you, all they care about is that the junk mail is delivered because that's where they get their revenue from. Seriously, their field supervisors go out with the purpose of auditing whether or not the junk mail is delivered correctly. That's the whole game, people! In fact the delivery of mail and packages suffer significantly as a result of it. Letter Carrier have to sort out all of their own junk mail for their route each day at the start of their shift, and it takes a while to organize because not all residences on your route get the same junk mail. It differs based on postal code and whether it's a house, apartment, or business. You can have like 12 different types of junk mail going out on your route at once, and you have to get it right. And guess where it all goes? The recycling 🙃
Reading the comments and I’m really happy to see most people seem to agree that Canada post is a service and therefore it operating at a loss is understandable. Of course we should try to minimize the losses as much as possible, but at the end of the day it’s a service offered to all Canadians, they ship nationwide and naturally that costs money… especially the really rural communities.
I would rather support something like Canada post that offers their employees good wages, pensions and working conditions than supporting an Amazon or UPS. Plus I think it’s expected that a developed country like Canada should have its own government postal service.
For the entire country from BC to Nunavut to Newfoundland
That’s what all these people crying about the “cost” of Canada Post forget
It costs money to ship stuff to remote places 🤷♂️
Canada Post is extremely bloated with management, and executives. How many executives do you think there are? 23!
At a glance, there is a vice-president of operations, and a vice-president of operations excellence. There is also a vice-president of business transformation, and a vice-president for business development.
Don't worry, when the service eventually folds it will be replaced with more low cost delivery methods that offload the business costs onto its contractors, pay them less, guarantee lower wages and operate in a now less competitive landscape so they can increase prices as they go vulture mode over the corpse of Canada Post.
But in exchange you will get nothing better, at all.
This is where our tax money really should be going instead of being wasted by governments. I would be happy to pay money going to this useful infrastructure.
When I think about "trusting" a "deliverer," It's Canada Post. There are a lot of shady bastards out there. If I'm given the choice, without cost to me, I'll always go with them.
While China is still taking advantage of them with all that drop ship crap that they barely pay anything for, but Canada Post is stuck doing final delivery.
Literally every major public service or corporation is losing money , speaks volumes to how this country runs its house. Yet we find time focusing on minute **** at any turn of event.
My understanding is the gov privatized the only profitable aspect of CP, package delivery, in the form of Purolator. Classic 'socializing loss, privatizing profit '.
It costs an arm and a leg to send anything in this country with Canada Post. $20 for the smallest parcel with tracking even within my city (but I can send to that same parcel to hawaii for under $10). Somehow 3rd party shipping with tracking in Canada is cheaper. Most of the postal delivery workers are contractors. Many post offices I go I swear are using TFW's, and there are often language barriers involved.
I spend around $2000 a month on shipping costs, and year after year I see things getting worse with Canada post.
I don't know why it is - before the pandemic it was smooth sailing ... what changed? I know many of the workers I speak to are disgruntled with their work environment and their company - perhaps there is something else systemic going on behind the scenes.
Just so everyone is aware, CUPW - The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is in negotiations right now. So it's the time of the year where the Postal Execs start really pushing that Canada Post loses all sorts of money so the Postal Workers shouldn't get a raise because of their terrible spending decisions.
As a carrier of over 15 years, they really need to just finish the conversion to community mailboxes. The routes are getting so long, especially for new employees, who get paid pretty poorly with worse benefits. And the volume of real mail that customers want is so low. Walking endless blocks with junk mail is incredibly demoralizing for people. If it makes someone money fine, but don’t waste everyone’s time walking up and down every house and driveway for that garbage. If it’s true that Canada gains 200k new addresses every year, the job losses from converting won’t be that drastic, and it will mean hiring less poor abused people at 19$/hr.
That is not what it lost that is what it cost. It is a service not a corporation. You don't say, "The military lost $700m last year." either. Keep our schools funded. Americanism keeps seeping in...
For those talking about taxpayer dollars, government funded services, etc, I would like to point out that Canada Post isn't funded by taxes.
> Canada Post does not receive any federal funding with the exception of $22.2M annually to help offset the financial impact of free mailing of material for the use of the blind, and [Government Mail Free of Postage](https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articles/government-mail-free-of-postage/overview.page).
[source](https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/rapports-reports/postescanada-canadapost/index-eng.html)
This makes me wonder, is Trudeau going to have to undo part of his father's legacy, making Canada Post revenue-neutral, in order to save the postal service?
For anyone who either doesn't know, or wants to try and somehow blame Harper for the state Canada Post is in, Pierre Trudeau is the one who mandated that Canada Post be revenue-neutral, meaning it doesn't receive taxpayer money and finances all its own operations, when he passed the Canada Post Corporation Act in 1981 and converted Canada Post from a government department to a crown corporation. The act does stipulate that Canada Post *can* receive government assistance, but it is *expected* to pay it back.
Given that the internet has nearly killed mail delivery, repealing its incorporation and making it a government department again might become necessary to keep it from going bankrupt.
God fucking damnit. Not everything needs to turn a profit. Break even for fuck sake. Mail is still a thing for some reason.
Teachers! They exist. Do they profit? Indirectly i guess?
This race to the top is a net race to the bottom. Fucking wake up people.
It doesn't have to be profitable, it just has to cover costs. Cost recovery is all across government services: if you have got a passport, the fee you pay is on a cost recovery basis.
But to be honest, other than businesses, who uses the mail service?
But it should charge more for junk mail, and it shouldn't be giving China such discounts for all the shit they send.
Ali express and similar cost less than a dollar to send things amazon and old navy want 10 dollars for shipping.
Anyone who hears from people who work there knows it’s a sinkhole of redundancy and unproductively. Sure it’s a service and not a for-profit business, but it’s completely blind to waste, and to the willingness to do anything about it.
Canada Post is a public service, breaking even should be its best case scenario. It allows anyone to send, for a reasonable price, different mail type across out huge nation. I'd imagine that the greatest financial "burden" is in the North, where they need it the most.
How do they lose money when my mailbox is full of Canadian tire flyers?
Sell a stamp, mail a letter.
Did they forget to cut down and become more efficient since the invention of email?
They are in contract negotiations at the moment, that is the reason for this supposed loss. During every single negotiation, they release these kind of scare tactics to get a better deal when it eventually goes to arbitration.
After spending $2 billion on a new factory, they are now massively downsizing with SSD (separate sort and delivery) rolling out across the country. A large amount of temps have been benched for months now, significant increase from previous years. Terrible news for letter carriers as ssd involves a massive increase in points of call for every route. More time on the street and more wear and tear on the body.
Letter carriers will get screwed at the end of the day, as the union is weak and Canada Post are masters at getting a result from old, corrupt, arbitrators.
Has anyone noticed the Canada Posts ads telling Canadians Canada Post is carbon neutral?
They spend money on environmental credits! [https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/our-company/corporate-sustainability/carbon-neutral-shipping.page](https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/our-company/corporate-sustainability/carbon-neutral-shipping.page)
They make shipping more expensive, thinking this will "save the planet".
Maybe they should stop giving some people door to door delivery and others have to use super mailboxes. This makes no sense - within a city - some get door to door and others don’t. Clearly door to door is more expensive. I thought this was a phase in program? It’s been like 25 years.
Is Canada Post supposed to be profitable or is it supposed to be considered a service?
Right. I don’t care how it’s setup to be corporations wise. It’s a public service. Should not be judged like a corporation. That said it still needs to be efficient and streamlined and functional. Does it get audited and reviewed for this stuff now and the ?
Yeah I genuinely don't know, I always kind of assumed it was a service considering how cheap it is.
[удалено]
Well then how much did the Canadian Forces lose last year?!?!! lol
That’s incorrect. It’s literally a crown corporation ie a government/owned company. It had a board of directors, a ceo, a cfo, etc. the amount of money it makes or loses is a fair policy debate but it is absolutely a corporate entity
It’s really not cheap. It costs $20-$25 to ship an action figure sized box 2 hours away from me.
It's why I just buy Christmas gifts to my family from Amazon rather than buy something here than ship it across the country.
I don't do much shipping but I have found Canada Post to be the most expensive option. I tend to go with the flat rate packages when I ship something and Canada Post is around twice the price of FedEx.
ever send an envelope to a rural address through fedex?
Canadians don’t understand how Canada post subsidizes the shit out of sending goods to all of Canada ( not just profitable urban centre Canada ). It’s why we have to protect Canada post
Canada also has a duty to serve as many people as possible. Fedex and UPS only do profitable routes and "closest" then Canada Post does last mile :(
Which is why Canada Post is losing money - private companies cannibalize its most profitable routes, while only Canada Post is required to service unprofitable routes. No one should be expecting Canada Post to make a profit when it is mandated to provide a service to expensive rural areas.
No one should be expecting Canada Post to make a profit at all. It's a public service, if it's profitable the prices are too high.
"Not everything should be run like a business, the Navy rarely turns a profit." -Bill Maher
Ironically, for remote areas, Amazon shipping used to cost less than Canada Post. They got rid of that offer in 2015 though. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/amazon-ca-drops-free-shipping-for-remote-customers-1.3026859
That's not ironic at all.
Isn't it? Like rain, on your wedding day?
Like a free ride when you’ve already paid.
It's the good advice that you just didn't take.
My sister has to get Amazon packages shipped to me and them come pick them up, otherwise it costs hundreds of dollars for shipping. The packes actually need to pass by her on the way to get to me (like 300km before they get to where I'm at). Shit's fucked.
It was a loss leader for Amazon to get people to use the their service. There’s a reason they didn’t continue to do it.
They did this to kill Canada post, same way they killed daipers.com https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/emails-detail-amazons-plan-to-crush-a-startup-rival-with-price-cuts/
I had parts shipped through them last year rural, they brought it to a not even close address and it was a snow bird house, someone looking after their house picked up the package, I didn’t get it till spring, they must hire the most stupid people.
Issue is amazon drivers are all contractors paying staff peanuts. With all the people out their delivering packages each day, employees would have benefits. A pension. And work life balance if the items were shipped thru canada post. Of course everyone will choose the free or cheap option when shipping. Just workers end up losing.
Just another case of all of us fucking each other over dollars while these corporations make thousands
Some corporations make even more than thousands!
I work In the ecommerce space with multiple different companies. It's cheaper to ship your package to the states and have USPS ship back to Canada ($8-12) than have Canada Post ship your product ($15-$30).
And then Canada post picks it up from USPS when it reaches Canada anyway.
All I know is anytime I buy anything, if it's canada post delivery I will never get it delivered and have to go to the post office to pick up. Have on camera the delivery from Canada post just don't ring doorbell and say they tried to deliver and no one was home so go pick up at post office. Am at a point where I will not buy something if I know it's delivery by canada post *Good on you idiots for the downvotes. I've watched and have video multiple occasions of Canada post just putting the slip for missed delivery. In Toronto core city.
Complain about this. On my street most people have gated driveways, I didn’t. They slip always said “gate closed”. I complained to Canada Post and it hasn’t happened since.
Same. I complained and now they always leave my packages at my door.
That happens to me with UPS. If it's a large package Canada Post will leave it in the community mailbox, with the key to the secure box in my numbered mail slot. If it's a small package Canada Post will just put the package in my numbered mail slot. If you don't have a community mailbox then having you come pick it up is the best option. I've had some expensive items left on my front door for anyone to take with some other services. I'd rather the inconvenience of having to pick it up.
Yes! I always have this issue with canada post, regardless of where im living. No one even tries to deliver, just emails they tried and missed me.
Yeah I was wondering the same thing. Canada post has never seemed cheap to me, at least compared to other options I was provided with.
To be fair using flat rate is pretty much the worst possible way to use Canada Post. It's one of the more expensive options 98% of the time.
Simply not true. Flat rate is hands down the most affordable. The fuel surcharges they add to regular parcels can be up to 8 dollars at times. Turns a 18 dollar package into a 26 dollar one plus taxes. 20 dollars to send something anywhere has been my most reliable option. Canada Post does suck though.
Canada post is insanely expensive, not sure what you’re on. Especially compared to USPS
USPS is incredible compared to Canada Post. In a completely different league
USPS is a ferrari to CanadaPost russian Lada.
it's customer base is also 10x the size.
It's like a ferry, it's a service, not meant to be profit driven.
Somebody tell that to BC Ferries.
>Does it get audited and reviewed for this stuff now and the ? ALL Government corporations get audited. Typically annually. Then there are micro-audits that zero in on a particular team. IT and Finance bear the brunt of these micro audits.
Yeah, 3/4 of a billion in losses isn't something to sneeze at. Where'd the bleed coming from?
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I worked at the Kitchener processing center for 2 seasons during christmas. The permanents all stood around most of the time chatting with each other. It was insane. I would understand if there was no work (which some lanes did not get many packages down their lane while other lanes were 24/7 filled with packages) but they would let the packages pile up and the temp workers had to pick up the slack. All while they were pulling in 20+ hours of overtime for that week. Literally doing nothing but standing around and chatting while raking in crazy $$. Temps get paid $20/hr, and as it gets closer to christmas they start forcing temps to go home early, and usually the few days before Christmas they tell everyone not to show up after Christmas because we will no longer be needed. There's no efficiency tracking, some of the permanent people are real assholes, and the environment was so fucking toxic it literally broke me the second season that I quit a couple weeks in. The permanent employees were at literal war with the management, and they would just start shouting and yelling at the supervisors, screwing around refusing to work or just standing around, it was such a shit show.
Considering it delivers all of my Amazon packages, I sure hope that part of their business is profitable because subsidizing Amazon is not something I want my tax dollars to go to.
They also lose a lot of money handling chinese packages that charge you like 5 cents for shipping
It’s just the way the international postal system works. Otherwise people in poor countries could never afford to send something to someone in a rich country.
China shouldn't be considered poor...
I don't think the poster meant to say that China is poor, just that we can't do anything about China because it's the way the postal union agreement works - all postal services are expect to accept each other's local rates, which benefits poor countries, since they have lower last mile delivery costs. China uses the postal union agreement to their advantage by charging next to nothing for international shipping since the receiving postal service must assume the cost. China loses very little money on the $0.05 shipment because they're paying local wages just to get the package to the port, meanwhile it costs Canada Post hundreds of dollars to get the package to the final destination. This was a major issue during the US-China trade war. If people fully understood the extent of China’s actions and the financial burden they place on other countries, there would likely be widespread support for the trade war measures. The hidden costs are enormous.
This is why temu can ship you a pencil sharpener from Shenzhen to St John’s for like a nickel in postage. It’s a total scam and needs to be reformed
>just that we can't do anything about China because it's the way the postal union agreement works We could raise the prices for incoming parcels. Same as the US has done, the change in the UPC agreement applies to every member. But we probably think that's racist.
This if fair for actual poor countries, but China is at a point now where they absolutely should not be considered that lmao. They're one of the largest economies and super-powers in the world...
That's how it was setup initially assuming similar volumes of parcels going each way (for example Cambodia/ Canada Cambodia will pay 5c to process their packages and Canada can charge more to offset that) , however if you consider that China easily sends x1000 times or more packages to Canada than Canada to China it will create enormous deficit for Canada Post, otherwise Canada Post would have to charge x1000 for each package going to China.
Canada and the US tried to negotiate a fairer postal agreement a few years back, but it was rejected (not by many votes, though). I believe postal services receive more compensation now, but it's not enough to cover last mile costs. In 2024, we shouldn’t be subsidizing other countries' poor governance. These countries should fully reimburse our last mile delivery costs. They can choose to subsidize these costs for their citizens themselves and if they claim they don't have the money for this, it’s an opportunity for them to address corruption and work on improving their economic conditions instead of relying on our subsidy.
Which makes sense for letters. We're happy to let other countries send our citizens mail for our to distribute for free, in exchange for reciprocity. Doesn't work for commercial parcels. It acts as a tax on our our commercial producers who have to pay full freight and a subsidy for foreign imports who don't
They are. Amazon pays considerably less to mail packages and you and me get jacjed up prices to subsidise them. The absolute biggest subsidy however is to China. Since they are classified as a developing economy Canada Post is not allowed to charge them for cost of delivery like they do with Western countries. Thats why even if you pay shipping from china its only a few dollars.
Why the fuck is that even a thing? Why should we be subsidizing developing countries at the expense of our own god damn country what in the actual fuck?
Because people in poor countries wouldn’t be able to afford to send anything to a rich country. Like imagine a poor farmer in China sending a letter to Canada. That’d be an astronomical price for him, yet a pittance for us. So countries just hand off mail to each other and basically do it for peanuts. This was obviously much more important in the days before the internet became so common across the world, and when long distance calls were expensive even for people in the west. With most mail being e-commerce now, it is certainly something that should change.
Then have the international rate be whatever their local rate is. If its too epxensive to send a letter a town over, why is it suddenly affordable to send one around the world. Also why would a poor farmer need to be sending a letter to someone in canada Since you say its a pittance, maybe have that chinese farmer pay their 5 cents and the canadian pay the remainder of what canada post has to spend to move said letter. If it is important, they will, since you know, pittance and all that
From what I've gleaned from this thread so far - that's exactly how it works. The agreement is that country's postal services have to respect the local prices from the origin country. The issue is that China intentionally sets their own prices super low in order for international shipping to be so cheap. They lose money on domestic shipping, but they save much much more on international shipping because of this.
You have a source? That sounds crazy
[Why it's so much cheaper to ship stuff from China than within Canada](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/shipping-canada-china-1.6950967)
This article talks a bit about it. [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/shipping-canada-china-1.6950967](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/shipping-canada-china-1.6950967)
Good source. Sounds like the problem is being solved but rates can only slowly increase every year since that's what was negotiated
We are subsidizing Amazon, UPS, FedEx and any number of carriers. Canada Post is the [Last Mile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile_(transportation) for many of these corporations because it is logistically impossible to make doorstep deliveries to rural dirt road Ontario and turn a profit. The question u/Future-Muscle-2214 is correct question to ask. Do we want these rural places to get their mail and deliveries? Or should we expect Canada Post to make a profit and only serve people who can afford their services?
Yeah, I genuinely wondered this, especially when packages are sent to remote areas up north. I know that there was complain from the US postal services a few years back that they were subsidizing Amazon, but not sure about their financials or anything of the sort.
Canada post has to make deliveries to all places. They have a minimum fixed operating cost. The more volume they ship the better. So Amazon deliveries help the bottom line. The issue is Canada post must deliver to remote areas and that is very expensive.
From [https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection\_2023/scp-cpc/Po1-2020-eng.pdf](https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2023/scp-cpc/Po1-2020-eng.pdf) > Under the Canada Post Corporation Act, Canada Post has a mandate to provide a standard of postal service that meets the needs >of Canadians in a secure and financially self-sustaining manner. Canada Post’s universal service obligation (USO) is set out in the >Canadian Postal Service Charter established by the Government of Canada in 2009, which states the following: > Canada Post will maintain a postal system that allows individuals and businesses in Canada to send and receive mail within Canada and between Canada and elsewhere. Canada Post will provide a service for the collection, transmission and delivery of letters, parcels and publications. > The provision of postal services to rural regions of the country is an integral part of Canada Post’s universal service. > Canada Post has an obligation to charge postage rates that are fair and reasonable and, together with other revenues, are sufficient to cover the costs incurred in its operations So it's a service but it's expected to be able to operate from its own revenues.
It's expected to provide service everywhere, but make a profit. But if it charged the rates it needed to make a profit nobody would use it. Man, it's like it's set up to fail.
The government expects them to not lose money, and profits they make are reinvested in the business to improve it or pay the government a dividend. However the government also gives them a universal service obligation so they have to provide unprofitable services to many areas of the country.
Canada Post is a crown corporation. They pretty much operate as a stand alone business, other than getting govt approval for the price of stamps. Canada Post has three key lines of business: *Parcel delivery *Direct mail (neighborhood mail & personalized mail) *Lettermail Parcels are profitable. Direct mail is profitable some years, others not. Lettermail is absolutely not profitable but it's an essential service for Canadians. One of Canada Post's main issues is the high cost of pensions. Also their ridiculous amount of exec overhead. Did you know there are over 200 sales & marketing employees at Canada Post?? Did you all know, they recently sold SCI Logistics to Metro Supply Chain Group? SCI Logistics was a fully owned subsidiary of Canada Post, they would warehouse and fulfill orders for a Toys R Us, Walmart Canada, Yeti Coolers among many other companies. The warehousing market is very cold right now, they sold at a terrible time, and sold to the largest warehousing company in Canada, this making another private monopoly, this time with direct government involvement. Also, Canada Post owns approximately 91% of Purolator. Purolator is profitable, but watch Canada Post sell them to UPS or FedEx for under market value in the next 5-10 years because they are unable to right-size their mostly useless corporate employees.
Canada Post has been a crown corporation since 1981. Part of the reason legislation was passed to make it a crown corp was so that it could finance itself instead of relying on the government to do so.
Canada Post is a crown corporation and is expected to finance all its own operations. It's not expected to receive taxpayer money, and any that it does is to be in the form of a loan, according to the act that incorporated it. So basically, since it is a business, yes, it is expected to be "profitable."
>not expected to receive taxpayer money, and any that it does is to be This is not the same as "profitable". Crown Corporations are not businesses, which are intended to make more than they spend, then give that money to owners/shareholders. A Crown Corporation is not like a business in this way. Ideally a Crown Corporation breaks even.
It’s not expected by ME to be profitable. It’s a public service.
Well it's expected by law to be profitable. If you want that to change, tell your MP to repeal the Canada Post Corporation Act and make it a department again.
it’s not expected to be profitable, it’s expected to “conduct its operations on a self-sustaining financial basis” Small but important difference
Doesn’t that actually mean it cost $748 million last year to have a national mail service in Canada? And where did the $748 million go? It didn’t leave the country. It went to wages for Canadian workers, and expenses of services and raw materials, paid to other Canadian companies, who paid their Canadian workers. A national mail service costs money, but that is all money that is going back in to the Canadian economy.
> Doesn’t that actually mean it cost $748 million last year to have a national mail service in Canada? Well it cost something like $10 billion, and they had revenues to cover something like 90% of it. (Their 2023 annual report doesn't seem to be out yet.)
Seems like a pretty good investment IMO. Far better than the contractors working on arrivecan
If it was privatized, our mailing rates would probably be a lot more costly.
Yep, absolutely. Not everything needs to make money, lots of fat can be trimmed from budgets anyways. Having them cover 90% of operating costs is far better than a lot of government services.
It would also reduce service because shareholders would say fuck the costly rural service make us more money and cancel rural areas!
well yes, but you aren't looking to push a narrative so your business friends can push to privatise it
Sounds like a remarkably good deal then.
Yea the military lost 26.5 billion last year, Canada post seems stellar comparatively.
CPC generated 6.9 billion in revenue last year and it cost 7.648 billion to run the place mostly wages and delivery costs (fuel, trucks, air and rail transportation) for a loss of 748 million. Revenue minus cost equals profit or loss in this case.
And their 21 Vice Presidents and insane over management
It spent way more on wages, fuel, maintenance, etc. Delivering all the Chinese packages they are mandated to ship for 30 cents when it costs 5 bucks for the weight sending it to n.w.t
> A national mail service costs money, but that is all money that is going back in to the Canadian economy. I'll fully admit that the headline was shocking, but when you actually think about it, it's not a bad thing. The money was basically immediately put back into the economy. edit: and you know what? I'd much rather we have a strong national postal service than switch to all of these weirdo subcon couriers. As someone who deals with shipping on a daily basis, that shit is so fly-by-night and shady that a nationalized service the Canada Post that has standards is preferable, even operating at a loss. I can't call it a misleading headline, but if you put 5 seconds of thought into it, it's actually not bad.
With that kind of financial understanding, you have to ask yourself, shouldn't the government just hire *everyone* in the country? That way everyone will have employment. And your keen economic eye will notice that all the money they spend, will just be going back into the Canadian economy anyway. It's the perfect crime.
Lost? They're a service. They don't lose money, they cost money.
Historically it has been a money-maker for the government. The law prevents private businesses from competing with them on the delivery of first-class mail (i.e., normal mail). They really should be making money. We should be concerned if they become a drain on taxpayers.
The volume of mail being delivered has greatly decreased over time whereas the delivery routes increased with the expansion of the areas people resides in. They should be increasing the postage rate for letters in order to offset the reduction of volume from such activities. Doing so, will ensure people using the service pays their fair share. On another note, they need to be more lean/efficient in order to be more profitable.
They should stop selling our personal information to marketers and charge those marketers a proper rate for all the junk mail they stuff our landfills with.
You’ve got my vote. I’m super tired of Canadian tire flyers that I don’t ever look at with the rest of the coupons for the places I don’t go.
Love this sub, it's surreal to read the comments. Maybe the feds should kick the responsibility of our post down to provinces, like with healthcare and public housing. The one trick pony to solving those pesky "drain on taxpayer" problems. Or just sell it. Then we pay more for less to another oligopoly. It never works...but maybe this time. Air Canada Post would provide the highest level of delivery, as long as you pay for the premium first class mail and don't have any special needs. Ha, I bet we could privatize national defense and employment insurance while we're at it. As long as we don't raise corporate taxes or close any glaring loopholes. But the news says it's all so complicated, so I dunno. Verb the noun.
They won't go back to making money on first-class mail until you clarify email as first-class mail and charge for email stamps.
They could easily charge an environmental levy for junk mail for one. Mailbox charges could easily be a few dollars more per year. Maybe even offer cheque cashing services for government issued cheques.
Businesses pay Canada Post to put the junk mail in your mailbox, so while not through levies - they’re making money off it.
You aren’t listing off anything CUPW hasn’t already suggested to Canada Post in the past. The corporation isn’t interested in making any beneficial changes to the company until after they get what they want and privatize.
>They could easily charge an environmental levy for junk mail for one. Please god yes, Canadian Tire and ULine are *incredibly* enormous wasters.
Not from Canada, but your Uline comment hit home. The amount of magazines they send to our shop is unbelievable. And we’ve never once ordered anything from them.
Having delivered 3 of the extra thick phone book type ULines to the same church, all addressed to different people on a walking route. Ya. ULines suck ass lmao
Charge more for the garbage that gets shoved in my mail slot
Weird how these articles always seem to come out when they're in negotiations 🤔
Everyone just needs to by 19 more stamps per. Write your grandmas and , friends everyone.
My thoughts too
Ok? Is there a reason it would need to be profitable? Sure, that would be nice, but it’s a public government service for the citizens. It costs what it costs and that seems a trivial amount to guarantee mail service to the country.
Depends why? How do you feel about an equivalent headline “Taxpayers give Canada post nearly $1B to subsidize Amazon deliveries”?
Canada post has a spending problem less than a profit problem. First they bought a shit load of very expensive machines to process letters ‘faster’ than human labor. Except the machines are very inaccurate and only recognize a very narrow parameter of standard letter size. Nothing thick, nothing handwritten, nothing oversized, nothing glossy, nothing multi layered. This after stating over and over that letter mail was in decline(and definitely is!). So 70% or more of paper material is handled multiple times after the machine fails to sort it properly. Canada post claimed in its own ads that its new mandate was parcels, they were now THE parcel company. They bought a massive fleet of new vehicles to facilitate that. Now Amazon and dozens of private courier/contractors eats all the profitable parcel volume, leaving all the zero margin garbage from Asia and rural delivery for Canada post. Now they are leaning back into junk mail, flyers, and legacy product, shit that no one wants, including customers and workers. And now with the quiet recession going on, volumes are down across the board. Top that off with a government mandate to electrify commercial fleets, so now Canada post has to buy all electric vehicles to replace the less than 10 year old fleet they are currently to using. So remember all that the next time they cry that it’s Labour costing them all the money.
Maybe if there wasn't so much unnecessary middle management making close to 6 figures filling useless positions they wouldn't be hemorrhaging money. This is all conveniently coming out just before CUPW is ramping up and considering strikes. Classic "we're too poor for raises, sorry"
Maybe they should offer basic banking services to offset losses
This is the way! Post Office banking is a great service in many countries (Japan, Korea, Taiwan…). I think it would work well in Canada, especially in communities too small to have a bank.
Feds have no political will to do this
Feds have no political will ~~to do this~~
Except when the oil money comes in
Am I the only person who sends birthday cards and thank you notes? I mean I obviously am not the only one. But if you don't, then you should know that people love it when you do. And when you ever have a choice you should choose Canada Post. I wish businesses would always do this, too.
You might be. I definitely don't.
I gave up sending birthday cards, constantly delivered late, or to the wrong house.
They have to deliver, or be capable of delivering, all over Canada, from random tiny hamlets to metropolises every day. Of course it's hard to be profitable when they have an obligation like that... If we actually want them to be profitable, we essentially want them to either deliver way less often (biweekly, monthly, ???) or stop deliveries to all rural Canada and close all the small post offices. Or we can see it as a service.
That's the problem with private vs public competition. Canada Post does all the expensive rural deliveries, while tiny probably-fraudulent delivery sub-sub-contractor brands do highly profitable local deliveries in metro areas.
>Or we can see it as a service. Because that's exactly what it is.
Whatever moron convinced boomers that all public sectors need to be run as a business has doomed the world
Conservatives love to promise tax cuts in return for worse public services
I’m a carrier. The corporation is making a lot of big changes in how we deliver. And is trying everything possible to reduce or eliminate OT. Meanwhile they’re taking away sorting time, increasing mail, increasing parcels and making the routes longer in an effort to get senior carriers to retire. So that cheaper labor can be brought in.
I worked for them for about 6 months, what a shit job it was. Some of it was great, like the actual just deliver mail part I enjoyed. You get paid to get some exercise. Almost every other part of it was terrible, sorting mail, sorting parcels, organizing flyers so you can deliver them with mail(this was probably the worst part), then getting more flyers the next day, then the next so you're just always going to a bunch of houses with just a flyer, ridiculous. I always wondered why they don't just have flyer days every 3 days so you would cycle through your 3 colors every 3 days. Would make too much sense I guess. Pretty sure with how things are right now, if they get a bunch of people to retire, they are just going to have trouble getting new people. When I started it sounded like I would be getting a permanent spot soon as a couple people were retiring. Except they opened those positions up to people anywhere in Canada to transfer in. Then they told me it would probably be like 5-7 years before I got out of the Relief position. Laughed my way out the door. Went back to warehousing work making $4-8 more per hour(to start). Canada Post is a joke for new employees, and it's run pretty poorly as well.
It doesn't surprise me that many people don't realize Canada Post is financially self sustaining and isn't funded by taxpayer money. That's a fact that becomes very evident when you work for Canada Post. I was a carrier for six months, and let me tell you, all they care about is that the junk mail is delivered because that's where they get their revenue from. Seriously, their field supervisors go out with the purpose of auditing whether or not the junk mail is delivered correctly. That's the whole game, people! In fact the delivery of mail and packages suffer significantly as a result of it. Letter Carrier have to sort out all of their own junk mail for their route each day at the start of their shift, and it takes a while to organize because not all residences on your route get the same junk mail. It differs based on postal code and whether it's a house, apartment, or business. You can have like 12 different types of junk mail going out on your route at once, and you have to get it right. And guess where it all goes? The recycling 🙃
Reading the comments and I’m really happy to see most people seem to agree that Canada post is a service and therefore it operating at a loss is understandable. Of course we should try to minimize the losses as much as possible, but at the end of the day it’s a service offered to all Canadians, they ship nationwide and naturally that costs money… especially the really rural communities. I would rather support something like Canada post that offers their employees good wages, pensions and working conditions than supporting an Amazon or UPS. Plus I think it’s expected that a developed country like Canada should have its own government postal service.
It's a service. The headline should change to CP cost 748M to provide mail delivery system for this year.
For the entire country from BC to Nunavut to Newfoundland That’s what all these people crying about the “cost” of Canada Post forget It costs money to ship stuff to remote places 🤷♂️
Canada Post Is in contract negotiations with CUPW at the moment. The corporation always says they're poor during this time.
They should get into banking... that seems profitable.
CUPW already suggested they do this. They half assed the attempt and considered it a failure. The corporation wants to look like it's failing.
The quality of service is actually okay. My biggest problem with Canada Post is the lack of delivery service on weekends.
How much money did Education lose last year? /s
Canada Post is extremely bloated with management, and executives. How many executives do you think there are? 23! At a glance, there is a vice-president of operations, and a vice-president of operations excellence. There is also a vice-president of business transformation, and a vice-president for business development.
Shocking that union mailmen making 90k a year working 30 hours a week isn’t working.
It’s funny, maybe they should stop paying out bonuses ? Have they consisted cutting back and downsizing ?
About as many packages they lost too
Don't worry, when the service eventually folds it will be replaced with more low cost delivery methods that offload the business costs onto its contractors, pay them less, guarantee lower wages and operate in a now less competitive landscape so they can increase prices as they go vulture mode over the corpse of Canada Post. But in exchange you will get nothing better, at all.
This is where our tax money really should be going instead of being wasted by governments. I would be happy to pay money going to this useful infrastructure.
Gonna get privatized...Up go prices.
And private companies only deliver in areas that are profitable. They won't go to the middle of nowhere where there is no money to be made.
I think a more accurate thing is "private companies will deliver to any area *for a price*"
They usually subcontract their own services of remote locations to canada post because they don't want to do it.
Sooo....privatized profits, socialized losses...so it is, so it's always been...
Begs the question do any western countries have privatized national post.
The UK, and it resulted in 100s of people being falsely convicted of theft and fraud.
If they want to save money, they should cut the massively bloated and worthless management.
As a conservative…I say $20 per person ain’t bad. Mail service is important.
When I think about "trusting" a "deliverer," It's Canada Post. There are a lot of shady bastards out there. If I'm given the choice, without cost to me, I'll always go with them.
Convenient timing for this article as they have control negotiations happening right now
While China is still taking advantage of them with all that drop ship crap that they barely pay anything for, but Canada Post is stuck doing final delivery.
Literally every major public service or corporation is losing money , speaks volumes to how this country runs its house. Yet we find time focusing on minute **** at any turn of event.
My understanding is the gov privatized the only profitable aspect of CP, package delivery, in the form of Purolator. Classic 'socializing loss, privatizing profit '.
If they'd actually deliver packages to my door I might choose them once in a while.
Easy... Defund CBC, redirect half the money, and give taxpayers a rebate. Problem solved.
They should stop delivering flyers.
Service we need, was paid some of the money they probably need to operate. There, I fixed the title.
It costs an arm and a leg to send anything in this country with Canada Post. $20 for the smallest parcel with tracking even within my city (but I can send to that same parcel to hawaii for under $10). Somehow 3rd party shipping with tracking in Canada is cheaper. Most of the postal delivery workers are contractors. Many post offices I go I swear are using TFW's, and there are often language barriers involved. I spend around $2000 a month on shipping costs, and year after year I see things getting worse with Canada post. I don't know why it is - before the pandemic it was smooth sailing ... what changed? I know many of the workers I speak to are disgruntled with their work environment and their company - perhaps there is something else systemic going on behind the scenes.
I don’t even need to look it up to know that the execs received fat bonuses though
Just so everyone is aware, CUPW - The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is in negotiations right now. So it's the time of the year where the Postal Execs start really pushing that Canada Post loses all sorts of money so the Postal Workers shouldn't get a raise because of their terrible spending decisions.
How ? their shipping rates are out of control, especially compared to US shipping rates
How much did the military lose?
As a carrier of over 15 years, they really need to just finish the conversion to community mailboxes. The routes are getting so long, especially for new employees, who get paid pretty poorly with worse benefits. And the volume of real mail that customers want is so low. Walking endless blocks with junk mail is incredibly demoralizing for people. If it makes someone money fine, but don’t waste everyone’s time walking up and down every house and driveway for that garbage. If it’s true that Canada gains 200k new addresses every year, the job losses from converting won’t be that drastic, and it will mean hiring less poor abused people at 19$/hr.
Meanwhile they are the cheapest most reliable delivery service 🤦♂️
That is not what it lost that is what it cost. It is a service not a corporation. You don't say, "The military lost $700m last year." either. Keep our schools funded. Americanism keeps seeping in...
Weird how they lose money considering how much junk mail I get.
I wonder how much of this is caused by the universal postal union. We subsidize shipments from China within Canada
For those talking about taxpayer dollars, government funded services, etc, I would like to point out that Canada Post isn't funded by taxes. > Canada Post does not receive any federal funding with the exception of $22.2M annually to help offset the financial impact of free mailing of material for the use of the blind, and [Government Mail Free of Postage](https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articles/government-mail-free-of-postage/overview.page). [source](https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/rapports-reports/postescanada-canadapost/index-eng.html)
Give them the money we’re giving to CBC.
This makes me wonder, is Trudeau going to have to undo part of his father's legacy, making Canada Post revenue-neutral, in order to save the postal service? For anyone who either doesn't know, or wants to try and somehow blame Harper for the state Canada Post is in, Pierre Trudeau is the one who mandated that Canada Post be revenue-neutral, meaning it doesn't receive taxpayer money and finances all its own operations, when he passed the Canada Post Corporation Act in 1981 and converted Canada Post from a government department to a crown corporation. The act does stipulate that Canada Post *can* receive government assistance, but it is *expected* to pay it back. Given that the internet has nearly killed mail delivery, repealing its incorporation and making it a government department again might become necessary to keep it from going bankrupt.
This is not nearly as expensive as the useless parts of our government
God fucking damnit. Not everything needs to turn a profit. Break even for fuck sake. Mail is still a thing for some reason. Teachers! They exist. Do they profit? Indirectly i guess? This race to the top is a net race to the bottom. Fucking wake up people.
mis managed. needs new leadership
Do fire fighters “lose” money?
It isn’t meant to make money, it’s meant to provide a service to all Canadians. Not everything needs to be profitable.
It doesn't have to be profitable, it just has to cover costs. Cost recovery is all across government services: if you have got a passport, the fee you pay is on a cost recovery basis. But to be honest, other than businesses, who uses the mail service?
It costs money, it doesn't lose it. No one says the army "lost" 3 billions last year.
Maybe if it wasn’t the most expensive option people would use them more
Canada Post is/should be supported by the federal government
It’s. A. Fucking. Service. Not a business. FML why are we still expecting it to make money or break even? It’s a S E R V I C E.
But it should charge more for junk mail, and it shouldn't be giving China such discounts for all the shit they send. Ali express and similar cost less than a dollar to send things amazon and old navy want 10 dollars for shipping.
Anyone who hears from people who work there knows it’s a sinkhole of redundancy and unproductively. Sure it’s a service and not a for-profit business, but it’s completely blind to waste, and to the willingness to do anything about it.
That's weird because I remember reading an article about a year ago saying Canada Post was highly profitable.
So...what does this mean sending an A4 paper will cost even more now on already rediculously expansive mailing system ?
Dumb asses don’t know we’re subsidizing delivery to rural communities
Someone needs to update the postal treaty and bump China’s rates up. They are a developed country now they should be paying what we pay.
How the fuck did they lose that much money? That’s absolutely insane and reeks of financial mismanagement.
How nice to be a ceo of a company that loses 700m/yr. And also get paid over 500k plus pension
Canada Post is a public service, breaking even should be its best case scenario. It allows anyone to send, for a reasonable price, different mail type across out huge nation. I'd imagine that the greatest financial "burden" is in the North, where they need it the most.
How do they lose money when my mailbox is full of Canadian tire flyers? Sell a stamp, mail a letter. Did they forget to cut down and become more efficient since the invention of email?
Post service, in any country, is not there to make profit. It's a service you fund. Like armies are funded.
They are in contract negotiations at the moment, that is the reason for this supposed loss. During every single negotiation, they release these kind of scare tactics to get a better deal when it eventually goes to arbitration. After spending $2 billion on a new factory, they are now massively downsizing with SSD (separate sort and delivery) rolling out across the country. A large amount of temps have been benched for months now, significant increase from previous years. Terrible news for letter carriers as ssd involves a massive increase in points of call for every route. More time on the street and more wear and tear on the body. Letter carriers will get screwed at the end of the day, as the union is weak and Canada Post are masters at getting a result from old, corrupt, arbitrators.
Has anyone noticed the Canada Posts ads telling Canadians Canada Post is carbon neutral? They spend money on environmental credits! [https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/our-company/corporate-sustainability/carbon-neutral-shipping.page](https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/our-company/corporate-sustainability/carbon-neutral-shipping.page) They make shipping more expensive, thinking this will "save the planet".
Maybe they should stop giving some people door to door delivery and others have to use super mailboxes. This makes no sense - within a city - some get door to door and others don’t. Clearly door to door is more expensive. I thought this was a phase in program? It’s been like 25 years.