If you’ve grown up with a mail carrier climbing your front steps to drop off letters, that experience is on its way out.
Canada Post confirmed this week that it has received government approval to begin consultations on a sweeping transformation plan that includes eliminating door-to-door mail delivery, closing rural post offices, and changing delivery standards for letter mail.
The changes would affect roughly four million addresses across the country, which would be converted to community mailboxes over the next five years.
The move stems from a September 2025 announcement by Minister Joël Lightbound, who described Canada Post as facing an “existential crisis” after accumulating more than $5 billion in losses since 2018.
According to reports, the Crown corporation is currently losing around $10 million per day, and even a $1 billion injection earlier in 2025 wasn’t enough to stabilize things. The government is also allowing Canada Post to adjust delivery standards for non-urgent mail, meaning some letter mail could be transported by ground rather than air to account for lower volumes.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers isn’t happy about it. In a statement published Monday, National President Jan Simpson called the announcement “yet again another attempt to derail our negotiations process,” noting the union is currently focused on upcoming ratification votes.
Simpson also flagged a transparency concern. “It has now been more than four months since Canada Post provided this plan to the Government,” she wrote in the statement. “We have repeatedly requested access to it, yet neither the Government nor Canada Post has shared the plan with us, and it has still not been made public.”
The union is calling for a full public mandate review that includes input from all stakeholders across the country before any changes are approved.
The rollout is expected to happen gradually over five years rather than all at once.