It’s a scene that’s become all too familiar to Canadians: postal workers on the picket lines, mailboxes overflowing, and a nation’s mail delivery system brought to a grinding halt. On September 25, 2025, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) made the dramatic decision to launch a nationwide strike, following the federal government’s announcement of sweeping reforms to Canada Post. The move, which affects 55,000 employees, marks the second major strike in as many years and has left millions of Canadians and thousands of businesses scrambling to adjust.
The trigger for this latest standoff was a raft of changes unveiled by Joël Lightbound, the Minister of Public Works and Procurement. Facing what he described as an “unsustainable” financial crisis, Lightbound detailed a plan to overhaul Canada’s national postal service. Canada Post, he warned, is on track to lose a staggering 1.5 billion Canadian dollars by the end of 2025, after already hemorrhaging 1 billion in 2024 and 448 million in the first half of 2025 alone. The company is currently losing about 10 million dollars every single day, despite a federal injection of 1 billion earlier this year to keep the postal service afloat, according to CBC.
“Canada Post is effectively insolvent, and repeated bailouts are not a long-term solution,” Lightbound said at a press conference, as reported by TIME. “Transformation is required to ensure the survival of Canada Post and protect the services Canadians rely on.”
The government’s proposed changes are sweeping. Among the most controversial is the end of door-to-door mail delivery for the roughly four million Canadian households that still receive it. Instead, these addresses will be converted to community mailboxes—a move the government says will save nearly 400 million dollars annually. The moratorium on closing rural post offices has also been lifted, opening the door to widespread closures or reclassifications. Other measures include shifting non-priority mail to ground delivery, consolidating individual mailboxes, shortening the process for increasing stamp prices, and giving Canada Post more flexibility to raise prices as needed. The government commission’s recommendations, adopted in May, also call for reducing the requirement to deliver mail five days a week and converting many rural post offices into suburban or urban locations to reflect demographic changes.
For CUPW, these changes amount to an existential threat. The union, which has been locked in contract negotiations with Canada Post for nearly two years, says the reforms will lead to significant job losses, reduced service reliability, and an erosion of the public postal system. “Instead of supporting good, stable jobs and protecting universal mail service for all Canadians, the Government has chosen to side with Canada Post’s corporate plan—a plan that the Union has long warned was designed to erode services, undermine workers, and pave the way for privatization,” the union said in a statement to TIME. “This strike is about more than just workers’ rights. It’s about defending a public service that communities across this country rely on every single day.”
The union’s frustration is palpable. In early August, CUPW members rejected what Canada Post described as its “final” contract offer—a 13% pay increase—insisting on a 19% raise instead. Since May, the union had been escalating pressure tactics, including an overtime ban and a halt to delivering flyers. But the government’s announcement of what CUPW called “drastic” and “massive” changes was the last straw. “In response to the Government’s attack on our postal service and workers, effective immediately, all CUPW members at Canada Post are on a nationwide strike,” the union announced Thursday, as reported by CBC.
Canada Post, for its part, expressed disappointment at the union’s decision to escalate strike activity, warning that it would only worsen the corporation’s dire financial situation. “A national strike of any length will impact service to Canadians and businesses well after the strike activity ends,” the company said in a statement, according to BBC. The Canadian Association of Independent Business echoed this concern, warning that the timing of the strike—just ahead of the critical holiday retail shipping season—would have a “massive” impact on small businesses across the country.
So what does this mean for Canadians? For now, mail and parcel delivery is at a standstill. Canada Post has suspended service guarantees for items already in the mail, and no new items will be accepted until the disruption ends. However, the company has committed to continuing the delivery of government benefit cheques—including Old Age Security, the Canada Child Benefit, and the Canada Pension Plan—as well as live animals during the strike. All mail and parcels already in the network will be secured and delivered as quickly as possible once operations resume, but the backlog is expected to be significant. After last year’s holiday-season strike, the backlog reached “a couple million” items, according to Canada Post.
The duration of the strike remains uncertain. Last year’s walkout lasted just over a month before the Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered workers back to their jobs. This time, Canada Post has said it needs a week to present a new offer to the union and has 45 days to submit a restructuring plan to the government. The union’s contract was extended to May 2025, but negotiations have been fraught, with issues ranging from job security and pay to the use of part-time workers and working conditions.
The roots of the crisis run deep. Since 2018, Canada Post has lost more than 5 billion dollars, as the volume of letter mail has plummeted from 5.5 billion pieces in 2005 to just 2 billion today—even as the number of Canadian households has grown. Parcel volumes, once a bright spot, have also declined as competition from private delivery companies like FedEx, UPS, DHL, and Purolator intensifies. High fixed costs and the need to maintain universal service have left Canada Post in a financial bind, with the government and the union at odds over the path forward.
The government insists that the changes are necessary to preserve a vital public service, especially for rural, remote, and Indigenous communities. “It provides an essential service to Canadians, and in particular to rural, remote and Indigenous communities, and Canadians are rightfully attached to it and want it saved,” Lightbound said, as quoted by TIME. But for CUPW, the reforms threaten the very fabric of the public postal system. “The Minister emphasized the importance to serve all Canadians, but these recommendations will only undermine public service. We have no details on how any of them will be implemented,” the union said in a press release.
As the strike enters its first days, uncertainty reigns. Canadians are left wondering when their mail will arrive, businesses are bracing for lost revenue, and both sides appear dug in for a prolonged fight. With the future of Canada’s postal service hanging in the balance, all eyes are on the bargaining table—and the picket lines.
For now, the only certainty is that the nation’s mailboxes will stay quiet, as the struggle over Canada Post’s future continues to unfold.
