Canada Post: No settlement yet. Strike could resume May 22, 2025. | Page 2 | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Doug said
I don't agree Canada Post needs to be entirely self-sustaining, nor do I believe that is even possible anymore, given the accelerating decline in regular transactional mail.

Just for the record, I think it should be. I would be ok with an increase of 100% for letter mail. And other services perhaps 25% more. And no game playing with the rate vs the description. Let’s face it….we rarely mail anything any more. And last Christmas we used for Christmas, New Years and January birthdays for 10 bucks. As long as the cost of junk mail goes up by the same %. We never benefit from junk mail as it goes from mail box directly into recycling. And door to door will be phased out. And adding Saturday is a waste of time. I lived in Pitt Meadows, Calgary and Maple Ridge and both Pitt meadows and Maple Ridge we rarely ever get mail on a Thursday. I swear that we are on a 4 day delivery schedule. And some only pick up every week or two. With most stuff emailed in pdf format. On average Canada post is necessary but not essential. In my day door to door was 6 days a week and twice on Saturday.

That said, I do not believe there should be any door-to-door delivery to residential addresses in Canada.

Agree

I would go so far as to eliminate suburban community mailboxes, too,

Agree

and instead have mail pick up at contracted retail postal outlets, owned & operated post offices,

Totally disagree. My travel is involved. Not good for non drivers. My cost and time factors in.

and a new self-serve, ultra small format parcel pick up zones in established businesses.

Totally disagree. My travel is involved. Not good for non drivers. My cost and time factors in.

However, we should do that gradually and start with the elimination of door-to-door delivery and daily delivery of transactional mail. Let's deliver transactional mail to suburban community mailboxes three times per week. Expand parcel delivery to six, maybe seven, days per week.

Some what agree. And parcel wise compete with Amazon, UPS, FedEx etc. But sharpen up Purolater as it is owned by Canada Post.

Don't give me arguments of tired and aged 80+ and 90+ year old seniors.

Be careful there. As they say don’t F*&$ with old people. Most likely it would be old people in a single residence vs condo or rest home and the 2 latter have group boxes in residence.

Rather, this is a business opportunity for the private sector to offer mail pick up and delivery services to seniors on a subscription service, or they can move into a condo, where they would arguably be better given their elderly years anyway.

Totally disagree. Keep it simple. Contracting out gets messy for reliability, prompt and will always demand more $ to the point of no savings.

Cheers,
Doug  

AltaRed said
It can be self-sustaining if $1B of costs are cut out and/or perhaps the cost of postage goes up 50% or so in some coordinated balance to get to net zero. Purolator profits already subsidizes letter mail.

The complaints remind me of Nancy Ruth, Canadian senator, complaining about 'ice cold' Camembert cheese on her first/business class flights in 2015. The Canadian public roasted her for being so 'tone deaf'.  

You're forgetting the business has eroded, and they'll need to make significant investments in their business to win back market share, including price cuts on parcels. Plus, transaction mail is still eroding.

I am fine with the federal government providing a reasonable, say, $500 million-$1 billion per year, annual subsidy, but only if they can win concessions from the unions with flexible work weeks, dynamic routing, and permanent, part-time employees. Something's got to give. The growth in annual costs need to be contained, as right now, it's a runaway train.

Cheers,
Doug

Just to add. What pi$$ess me off. For years we have had community boxes. Postage is same for door to door. We have been subsidizing door to door delivery. Your postal code indicates door to door or community box. Community box postage should be less than door to door.

RetirEd said
Mail is a critical social responsibility. I wan the feds to supply the support it takes to keep it working. No cancellations of delivery days, no supermailboxes where they're not easily reachable by residents, no putting lettermail off while investing in deliveries - which have to compete with courier outfits.

My apartment building has gone from two containers of paper recycling to four, and they're jammed to the limit every time. All these delivery boxes are choking our recycling chain and consuming our forests.

I get mail every weekday, almost always much of it important, and don't want to lose it! What the heck, tax the cream-skimming delivery outfits!  

If I remember correctly, u r one of the rare few that demands paper and wont go soft copy route, which is cheaper, cleaner, more environmental friendly plus many other benefits.
Snail mail should be phased out completely, and thats the right path going forward.

Fact: privatized Deutsche Post delivers letters and parcels directly to the recipient's address, including those in rural areas.

…but it can’t be too long before physical letters become history.

GIC-Fanatic said
Just to add. What pi$$ess me off. For years we have had community boxes. Postage is same for door to door. We have been subsidizing door to door delivery. Your postal code indicates door to door or community box. Community box postage should be less than door to door.  

Yes, though in fairness, everyone's postage is a pittance. It doesn't cover the cost of delivery. That's why some level of continued, sustained government subsidy is required, though as I've said, we do need to cut and contain levels and get it back on to a sustainable growth pattern.

Doug said
What would happen is you'd get industry bidding on the urban and suburban contracts, leaving places like La Crete or Amisk in Alberta, both literally and figuratively, out in the cold. 

Not really. Just like Greyhound had to serve a wide range of communities in rural Western Canada that were financial losses in order to profit handsomely on the lucrative intra-urban routes per regulatory requirements. As long as Amisk has a postal code, T0B 9S9 and a central building with P.O. Boxes, there is no reason why a contractor couldn't put mail in the 100 or so boxes that are likely there (village plus surrounding farms). There are several such single (central) postal code stops in the villages along the 2-3 highways in that area.

That is exactly how mail is delivered to all the small towns west of Lethbridge, AB along Highway 3. A van delivers bags to each of the 10 or so central post offices between Lethbridge and the BC border. Head west from Lethbridge in the morning on Highway 3 to the BC border. Backtrack to Highway 6 south to Cardston and back along Highway 5 through Raymond and Magrath to Lethbridge. Perhaps a 6 hour round trip done twice a week. What is the problem?

The same thing can occur along Highway 3 in BC from Sparwood to Osooyos. Maybe 10 stops along the route, or make it two routes since Castlegar and Nelson are somewhat larger and might merit one route on its own, especially if the route also includes communities north of Nelson. There is no difficulty figuring it out just looking at a map.

This is looking for excuses rather than opportunities to do things in a different way.

I, like others, are proposing to cut way back on letter carriers to make CP more financially viable. It is easily done eliminating home delivery AND reducing frequency of service.

Contractors already service community super boxes so what is the problem expanding the community super box program and eliminating more letter carriers?

Secondly, I don't know because I don't sit along a highway to find out, but who delivers all those mail bags to central post offices today in small towns and villages in Alberta and BC, as in the Highway 3 corridor? Is it a contractor van or a CP truck with a logo on the side? None of those small towns and villages have door-to-door delivery today, so I imagine there are zero CP letter carriers today in those communities. There are CP employee manned central post offices to sort mail into individual P.O. Boxes but that is the extent of the use of CP employees in such towns and villages.

According to Google, Greyhound operated in Western Canada from 1920s until 2018. It ceased operations because government subsidized alternatives like VIA Rail and provincial services syphoned off ridership.

If the government privatizes Canada Post and then starts giving cash to competitors then it will fail too. But 100 years of operations across Canada is not a bad example.

In contracting out, one has to balance the ability to pay low wages against the need for private contractors to extract profit. The calculation does not necessarily go one way or the other. We have also seen low-wage contractors quickly facing labour action after taking over public-sector jobs.

Contractors for bus lines or school routes come to mind.