President’s message
Canada Post is built to serve all, acting as a connective thread that helps bind our country and our economy. It’s a critical national infrastructure with a reach that touches all corners of the country and every community. As an essential service that’s publicly owned, but not publicly funded, we rely on Canadians to use and pay for the services we provide. That helps ensure Canada Post remains focused on the needs of Canadians. As those needs change, so too must the postal system.
Responding to change has become a constant at Canada Post, especially since mail volumes began to decline almost 20 years ago. The challenges facing the postal system have grown over time, but significantly accelerated in the last two years as competition exploded in the parcel delivery market. As a result, the Corporation recorded a loss before tax of $748 million in 2023 after posting a loss before tax of $548 million in 2022. While change is a constant, the challenges we’re facing and our financial results make the situation more urgent.
Leading the change that’s necessary
Canadians understand our business model must change. They can see it in their mailbox. Households across the country were receiving an average of seven letters per week in 2006; today it’s two a week. An operating model designed to deliver nearly 5.5 billion letters in 2006 cannot be sustained on the 2.2 billion letters we delivered last year. This is not unique to Canada, but the impacts hit home. Canada Post is now at a critical juncture – modernize and revitalize to serve a rapidly changing country or fall behind and struggle to keep it all going.
At Canada Post, I want to assure Canadians that being there for them each day is much more than a mandated responsibility – it is a commitment that runs deep across the organization. It’s a source of pride and a duty every employee takes very seriously. Canada Post is therefore committed to leading the change that’s necessary to secure this essential service and put it on the path to long-term financial self-sustainability.
Our duty to serve instills in us a duty to act with urgency. We must adapt the postal system to better reflect what Canadians need, where they live, how they shop and how they use the service. As we move forward, we understand the importance Canadians place on Canada Post and the Government of Canada working together as stewards of this national infrastructure.
Taking action to address our challenges
While more change is needed, Canada Post has been steadily taking action to drive the company forward over the last few years. Focused on better serving Canada’s growing need for parcel delivery, we’ve invested significantly in new processing capacity, upgraded our facilities and recorded some of our best customer service numbers ever in 2023. We’ve also become a safer, greener and more inclusive organization that’s recognized for demonstrating leadership on many fronts. In early 2024, we announced major strategic changes to transform our information technology model and to divest SCI to better deliver on our core mandate.
These are all important changes we can build on, but it is clear there is much more we need to do to secure the future of Canada’s postal service. There is no perfect fix, but working with our employees, bargaining agents, customers and the government, we can ensure the long-term viability of a service that millions of Canadians consider essential. In fact, for Canada Post, the farther you get from our urban cities, or the smaller your business is, the more essential we become.
An essential service built for today’s realities
Canada Post still matters a great deal to the country, and I firmly believe we have the people, the focus and the commitment to serve a modern Canada in a financially self-sustainable manner. What’s needed is greater flexibility in how we deliver, how and when the service is provided, and how we cover the cost of providing the service, with a set of checks and balances built for today’s realities.
In many ways, the Canada we serve today is not the one we’re built for. Despite that, we’ve been able to make major transitions from mail to parcels, from monopoly to competitor and from nation builder to a constant, reliable lifeline connecting all Canadians, regardless of where they live. It’s now time to focus on making the changes needed to address our challenges and better serve Canadians, today and in the future.
As we chart a new roadmap for a modern national postal service, Canadians can be confident that Canada Post will lead the way, ensuring we always remain focused on serving their changing needs.
Doug Ettinger
President and Chief Executive Officer