Canada Post reported a staggering loss of $1.57 billion in 2025, marking the largest pre-tax deficit in the history of the Crown corporation. This financial hemorrhage follows nearly a decade of red ink, with losses exceeding $5 billion since 2018. To stay operational, the organization has been forced to borrow over $1 billion from Ottawa in both 2025 and 2026, placing a significant burden on taxpayers.
The Case for Privatization
As a Crown corporation, Canada Post operates under the direction of the federal government and holds a near monopoly in the postal market. Canadians have no alternative if they are unhappy with prices, service quality, or delivery times for letter mail. This lack of competition has led to inefficiencies, rising costs, and declining revenues.
Canada Post has struggled to modernize its operations and has faced numerous labour disputes with unionized workers. These challenges have resulted in increased costs, reduced revenues, and growing reliance on government borrowing. The situation was entirely predictable given the absence of market discipline.
Few Incentives to Cut Costs
With its near monopoly on letter delivery, Canada Post has little motivation to control costs or pursue profitability, knowing that the government—and ultimately taxpayers—will provide bailouts. The Canada Post Corporation Act prevents other companies from entering the letter-delivery market, further reducing competitive pressure. As a result, the corporation has scant reason to innovate or improve customer service, leaving Canadians with a failing business that is indifferent to their needs.
While Canada Post has introduced some transformative measures, such as ending door-to-door home delivery to reduce expenses, these incremental changes are insufficient to address the fundamental flaws in its business model.
Why Canada Post Should Be Privatized
There is no compelling reason for Canada Post to remain a Crown corporation. Private companies like Amazon, UPS, and FedEx already handle the majority of parcel deliveries across the country. These firms compete on price, service quality, and delivery times; if they fail to meet consumer demands or consistently lose money, they go out of business. Government involvement in the postal market is unnecessary and has proven financially unsustainable.
The federal government should privatize Canada Post and end its monopoly on letter mail. Several European countries—including the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany—privatized their postal services about two decades ago, resulting in price reductions of more than 10% in each nation. More recently, Denmark ceased letter deliveries altogether after a dramatic decline in volumes post-2000, adapting to the digital era instead of preserving an outdated business model.
In Canada, the government has previously owned and later privatized an airline, a railway, and an oil and gas company. Logic prevailed in those cases, and it should prevail now.
Canada Post is a financial boondoggle that policymakers can no longer ignore. Without privatization, Canadian taxpayers will continue to shoulder the burden of future losses. The time has come for Ottawa to act and allow Canada Post to modernize through private-sector discipline.
