09/30/2025
As promised on the picket line, here is a copy of the letter that I sent to the New York Times in response to an article written by one Associate Professor Ian Lee, Carlton University:
WARNING: This is a LONG reply.
Hello,
I would like to start this letter off with a sincere thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts on this issue.
As a postal worker for 35-years and counting, I think I have a good perspective on what is happening with Canada Post, and my views were initially at odds with those of the professor who was quoted in your article of Sept. 27 entitled "Government Sets the Stage for a Labor Showdown at Canada Post".
The source that you quoted stated that the Union's fight is not with Canada Post, but with the federal government and their policy changes. I was going to say that our fight is indeed with Canada Post but the more thought that I give it, our fight is with the federal government. Not because of the policy changes alone, but also because that government has allowed a CEO that has been an utter failure to remain at the helm of our postal service, because it is perfectly clear now that they have had an agenda for Canada Post from the outset of our negotiations, because of their utter contempt for the workers that have made Canada Post successful, because of their lack of vision as to how to reinvent Canada Post to make it relevant in today's reality, their refusal to look at ways to increase the wages of the middle class instead of suppressing them, their sham inquiry into Canada Post where no real ideas or debates were allowed, their penchant to drive Canadian workers into the third world realm wherein the next generation will subsist on part-time precarious work with no hope of ever achieving a meaningful life, and because of their willingness to ignore the rights given to workers under the Charter of Rights and thus their willingness to forego the very constitution which they have sworn to uphold.
Let me elaborate.
While Mr. Lee's comments about the corporation's alleged insolvency no doubt come from his past role as a financial officer for Canada Post, his comments expose his penchant for numbers over humanity. I say humanity because while Canada Post is at a crossroads at this time, there are many ways to look at it and there is more than one way to rethink the postal service's mission and purpose.
We must remember that politicians are elected to serve their constituents. Public services, as an extension of the government, were put in place to serve Canadians. The postal service was implemented at this country's inception and its role was to connect the entire nation. That mandate has not changed and should remain intact.
We constantly hear terms such as 'bankrupt' and 'insolvency' when discussing Canada Post, but those terms apply to a business or personal entity. While many consider Canada Post a business, it is not. It is a public service. As a public service, Canada Post is tasked with delivering to every point-of-call in this great nation. Private parcel companies are not. We go to many unprofitable locations and those private companies actually use us, the public service, to deliver to locations that are unprofitable. Thus, you cannot truly put Canada Post's financial results next to a private company's results for any type of comparison. True, Canada Post is run on a business model, but that is part of the problem. Canada Post, by virtue of this, is not insolvent. It is underfunded.
Let's look at Canada Post from the standpoint of a Canadian and of a worker.
Since becoming a crown corporation in 1981, Canada Post has been, for the most part, very profitable. In fact, in some years, it gave back to Canadians in the form of special dividends taken from that profitability. Yes, letter mail has declined, but the number of points-of-call that the average worker goes to has more than doubled. Even with 35 years of growth, Canada Post has fewer urban routes in many stations than it did in 1990.
From 1995 to 2010, Canada Post had 16 years of consecutive profits. In 2011, Canada Post began its Postal Transformation as per its 2011 annual statement. The changes to Canada Post were deep with community boxes being rolled out, letter carriers in major urban centers were pulled from the taxis and buses that they used to utilize to deliver their mail and were put in brand new trucks, and suddenly Canada Post lost money after 16 consecutive years of solid profitability. The company went on to have three years of losses in 2011, 2012, and 2013 due to the costs of implementing this transformation wherein it purchased thousands of new vehicles and spent millions on restructuring mail routes. Canada Post returned to profitability over the next 5 years, although in 2018 it technically recorded a loss due to a pay equity ruling which it lost. Without that ruling, Canada Post would have made a profit.
That takes us to 2019 when our current CEO, Doug Ettinger, was appointed to the board of Canada Post. Since his arrival, Canada Post has been in a free fall. One has to ask the question: How can anyone, let alone the federal government, justify this person still being at the helm of Canada Post? His record is abysmal. Since taking over at Canada Post, the corporation hasn't had one successful year in terms of profitability. Even with the dramatic increase in our parcel share during that time, (which is now in decline), and even through a period of pandemic when there was so much work to do that it couldn't physically be done, although workers were working 6 and 7 days a week with overtime everyday, this organization lost money under his stewardship. Now, in 2025, it is said that the company is broke.
There needs to be an in-depth look into Canada Post's finances, including the building of a $460 million dollar processing plant that was built to handle the volumes from a major online retailer. Was that work ever guaranteed? Were any long-term contracts signed for that work before this plant was built to process that work? If not, that is a major failure by any standard.
I will remind you that during the Covid pandemic, postal workers' contracts were up for renewal. In the spirit of trust and patriotism, postal workers agreed to a 2-year contract extension to avoid the burden of negotiating during a pandemic and took a yearly 2% wage increase even though this was far below the cost of living. Postal workers worked in a Covid-19 laced environment, took Covid-19 home to their loved ones, and some paid the ultimate price. We never even brought up the idea of danger pay.
So why did postal workers do that? Postal workers take a great pride in what they do. Believe it or not, we hate being on strike at any point. Not only because of the disruption to our finances, but because we care for our customers in a way that most workers do not. It pained us to not deliver to our customers as many of us have deep connections with them. After all, we interact with them on a daily basis. Postal employees took a lousy wage increase and extended our contracts so that we could serve Canadians, and serve them we did! It was also conveyed that the corporation would 'make it up to us' when our next contract was tabled. Postal workers took that in good faith, knowing that we were instrumental in not only keeping Canada Post going, but by also keeping the Canadian economy going.
Today, postal workers feel betrayed by their employer and their federal government. How soon they have forgotten our commitment and sacrifice when we were most needed.
That brings us to today. Postal workers have been sitting across the table from an employer who has not bargained in good-faith for almost two years now. We have been met with contempt, have had our employer disrespect us publicly via the media, and have witnessed our employer pulling out all of the stops to circumvent our Union's role in negotiations by bombarding us with its messages in work floor meetings, via the Canada Post propaganda screens located in our depots, and even via the mail and email.
We have been told many times that an offer would be tabled by the employer only to have a last-minute stay. Two weeks ago, Canada Post was to table an offer to CUPW and then capitulated, stating it would be tabled the following week. Last week, while waiting for that offer, the minister responsible for Canada Post held a bombshell press conference announcing draconian cuts to our work. To think that this minister had spoken to our Union just the prior week and had not indicated in any manner that he would be making an announcement.
Last summer, before Liberal Minister Patty Hajdu invoked Art 108.1 of the Canada Labour Code to force a vote on Canada Post's 'final offer', Canada Post tabled that offer and said that it was 'non-negotiable'. The term non-negotiable by its very nature indicates that our employer was not willing to negotiate and one has to wonder why?
The feeling amongst the workers at Canada Post is that the fix is in and has been from the word go. First, our employer would not bargain. They complained of mounting losses but did nothing to stem them. Sitting down at the bargaining table while sitting on your hands and at the same time telling your own customers to use other services is not how you minimize the damage caused by slow negotiations; not if you truly care about the company you are tasked to protect and grow.
In December 2024, Minister Hajdu invoked Articles 107 and 108 of that same act and ordered us to 'suspend' our strike for 5 months. This was a new development for Canada and a new low in the government undermining the Charter Rights that we supposedly have. A sham inquiry was set up and its report sided 100% with Canada Post. You cannot determine the fate of a crown corporation and a public service with a measly 18hrs of hearings. During those hearings, the Union was prohibited in discussing any new forms of revenue or expansion of services.
The inquiry was a mockery of justice and was so one-sided that I can't believe that somebody actually signed their name to it. The report called for massive cuts to our public service.
It is worthy to note that although recording eight and probably a ninth year in a row of steep losses, taking a formerly profitable corporation and running it into the ground, chairing a company that has the lowest morale on the shop floor in the 35 years that I have worked there, that there is absolutely no talk of getting rid of the CEO. Which begs the question: Why is he still here? The only answer that is plausible is that he is doing the government's will.
Now let's talk about the humanity aspect that I referred to in my opening. Canada Post is truly at a crossroads. Given the failure of management to manage the postal service, there are only two ways to go. Canada Post needs to either find new sources of revenue or it must make massive cuts to its service.
Even though there are millions of people living in major urban centres who could deal with these cuts, there are millions of other Canadians that will be disproportionately affected in a negative way by those cuts.
As governments are there in essence to serve the citizens of the country that they lead, and since public services are an extension of that service, why do we not look at expanding services at Canada Post? Why the full-stop when this is mentioned? Why not serve Canadians in an even more meaningful way?
During our strike at the end of 2024, Canadians in remote, rural, and Indigenous communities were gouged to ship or receive most of their items. We heard stories from some of these communities and calculated that they were paying more than 400 percent more for shipping via the for-profit companies than they were for shipping the same item via Canada Post. Now the Mark Carney government has announced the closure of many rural post offices. Why? It goes without saying that the residents in those rural communities are of little value to the government in Ottawa at this time.
Let's talk about a postal bank and the immense benefits that could be derived from it. Canadians pay some of the highest service fees in the world for everyday banking transactions, especially ATM fees. Canada's big 6 banks process over 90% of the transactions in Canada and pretty much have a monopoly. The big banks routinely post quarterly results of $1B or more each, yet their profits are not yet high enough so now many of them are closing rural and remote brick-and-mortar locations. Even cities are not immune to having branches closed down.
Where does that leave those in our small communities and our Indigenous citizens who the government has promised to do better by? By offering a postal bank, Canada Post could give Canadians an alternative to being gouged, could offer small-rate payday loans to assist those in our lowest socioeconomic circles from being preyed upon by payday loans that keep them in an ever-ending cycle of debt, could provide a brick-and-mortar location to many Canadians who no longer have one, and could rescue our elderly from being preyed upon online by unscrupulous and heartless scammers. (How many elderly Canadians have you seen on the news who have lost everything to an online scam?) This would be a p***c service actually serving Canadians.
CUPW has suggested charging stations for electric vehicles, seniors' check-ins, prescription delivery, rural high-speed internet, and the list goes on as ways to supplement the revenues of Canada Post and to reinvent its mission.
I spoke about humanity.
While the federal government is now endorsing and mandating the end of door-to-door delivery, let's look at the real costs of that.
Firstly, those who live in areas where there are nice homes will find that a community box is a magnet for advertisements and litter. Even though Canada Post will claim to maintain these areas, many areas are left to rot and look as unsightly as any other form of graffiti is. Secondly, and this cannot have a dollar figure put to it, your neighbourhoods will lose a part of the community that it once had. Having a postal worker make their rounds everyday is an intangible asset. We know when your mother hasn't checked her mail (we already do check-ins, but not because it's our job, but because we care), we notice that Joe isn't on the stoop and so we knock to check on him. We are the one's that see that someone is on your property when we know full-well that you are away on vacation, we call the police when someone is on the street who shouldn't be, we knock on your door when your kids have found a way to open the gate to the backyard you still think they are playing in and we are a go-to for kids on their way to school who feel that they are being followed or who feel that they are in danger. Just last week I assisted an older lady with dementia who couldn't find her way home.
While Canada Post touts the savings that they would have in ending door-to-door delivery, I question both those actual savings and the financial and human costs of them.
When door-to-door delivery ends, you lose the community protection that I have mentioned. You then put a letter carrier into a vehicle. That vehicle has to be purchased, operated, maintained and replaced. It produces carbon emissions and adds to traffic congestion. (There are tens of thousands more postal vehicles on the road today than there were 35 years ago and even so-called 'zero emission' vehicles must get their power from somewhere and that source produces carbon emissions.) Community mailboxes detract from your neighborhood and lower real estate values, especially if put on your frontage. The boxes have to be designed, fabricated, installed, maintained and replaced. Security keys must be ordered and then, every time somebody changes residence, the locks and keys have to be replaced. Elderly citizens now have to walk down ice and snow-covered streets away from the safety of their homes. Liabilities arise from non-maintenance and injuries that occur. When someone breaks into a community mailbox, there is no security camera like there is on your porch. The middle-class will shrink and there will be less opportunity for your children and mine. I am simply asking "What is the real cost to ending door-to-door delivery?" and are there truly any long-term savings?
People ask me "Why are postal workers so dumb that they think striking at a time when Canada Post is bleeding to death is a good move?"
We don't. We are striking not for gains only for ourselves. We are fighting for better working conditions for all Canadian workers. Every Canadian should have the right to be productive, to be paid a living wage that they can survive on, and every worker in this country should be able to retire in dignity. We are striking to have that conversation about what Canada Post could look like as opposed to the remnant of it that the government wants to leave us with.
Most of all, it is appropriate to point out that many of the workers who rejected Canada Post's last offer are in their last five years of employment. That is important to note because every one of these senior members turned down the offer in the forced vote. That almost guaranteed another work disruption. These members' pensions are based on their best five consecutive yearly earnings, thus they voted for a strike knowing that their pensions would be further reduced for the rest of their lives. They will not suffer the changes that are coming, so why do this? They are fighting for the next generation of Canadian worker, and those are our children and grand-children. While we have been complacent to have our standard of living eroded over the last 20 years, we will not sell-out our children's futures. Enough is enough. They deserve to have just a little hope.
It is also worth looking at the current structure of Canada Post. Our CEO is also on the board of directors for Purolator Courier. Canada Post currently owns 91% of Purolator Courier. That is a direct conflict-of-interest. As they say, one cannot serve two masters. It has been factually recorded and noted that much of our parcel business has shifted to Purolator and it is widely believed by the workers at Canada Post that this is a move to drastically reduce the business at Canada Post thus reinforcing management's position that Canada Post is hemorrhaging and on life-support. There is even evidence that major banks and our Worker's Safety and Insurance Board is sending letter mail through the courier company in small boxes, thus contravening the Canada Post Corporation Act. That is just one more law that the federal government is choosing to ignore at this time.
We find it also very suspect that shortly after the Canadian taxpayer made available to Canada Post a line-of-credit in the amount of $1.034B in January 2025 that Purolator, part of the Canada Post Group of Companies, purchased Livingston International on February 24, 2025 for an undisclosed amount. Undisclosed? Shouldn't a company that is owned by a crown corporation that is owned by the Canadian government be required to disclose publicly how it is spending the money? A 2022 report from Bloomberg valued Livingston at $1B. Hmm.
Privatization should also be a concern to Canadians even though this hasn't really been vocalized in any meaningful way. The problem with a government agenda to privatize something is that it is usually too late to thwart once an announcement has been made. The federal government has shown no willingness to save Canada Post, thus we have to assume that these conversations are taking place. As Canadians have shown time and again via federal elections, they support postal workers and their post office. They will fight to defend it as they have before. Unless, of course, the government can convince them, the public, that the post office is costing them $10M a day and is going to drag them down.
Summary:
While the workers at Canada Post concede that volumes in both lettermail and parcels have dropped, the questions are there as to why parcel volumes are dropping exponentially. Is the CEO of Canada Post encouraging vendors to use Purolator instead of Canada Post? Purolator was recently cited as giving 'discounts' to new customers. Why has Canada Post been discouraging customers from using its services on its very own website, warning of a potential labour dispute even while CUPW was in a holding pattern regarding strike action and the union was still at the table willing to talk?
Changes need to be made. Postal workers are hoping the very first change is a new Board of Directors and CEO. The next change would be for the federal government to hold all proposed changes until a full public inquiry, which involves ALL stakeholders, is held with meetings across the country as per the democratic rules that we usually use.
There needs to be time to discuss massive change and there has to be a chance to look further into expanding services, thereby enhancing services to Canadians and the creation, not the elimination, of good-paying full-time jobs for our kids. Stakeholders would include Canadian citizens, small businesses, large businesses, municipalities, the Canadian Assembly of First Nations, charitable organizations, federal MP's, and of course the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Association of Postal Officials of Canada, the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association, and any other relevant party who is deemed to have a place at the table. The least we will expect is equal resources (time, effort, and money) being used to look at expansion as there is regarding cuts.
Canadians, Canada Post employees, customers, charities and small and large businesses are now being asked to shoulder the costs of a company mismanaged into chaos. We simply won’t stand for it. The responsibility for where Canada Post sits at this moment in time lies with its management team and the federal government. There should be a full parliamentary inquiry into Canada Post, its finances, and its management, as well as that for all of the other companies under the Canada Post group of companies and this inquiry should be at least seven years in scope.
We deserve the truth. We deserve respect. We deserve our public service. We deserve no less.
Going into Christmas, instead of seeing headlines that scream "Charities Hopes Dashed By Postal Strike" perhaps we will read "Charities Hopes Dashed By Federal Government Interference and Corporate Malfeasance".
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
John Lawrence
President
Oshawa Local 579
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
