What is the role of Canada Post?

Canada Post is the federal Crown corporation responsible for postal service across Canada. It was established in its current form by the Canada Post Corporation Act, which received Royal Assent on December 21, 1981 and took effect October 16, 1981, converting the Post Office Department into a self-financing Crown corporation reporting to Parliament through the Minister of Public Services and Procurement. Canada Post traces its origins to 1851, when the colonial Province of Canada took over postal service from British authorities and issued the Three-Penny Beaver, the country's first postage stamp.

Canada Post operates the most extensive transportation and delivery network in Canada, reaching approximately 17 million addresses through 6,200 retail post offices and partnerships with retailers from Shoppers Drug Mart to convenience stores in remote northern communities. The corporation handles about 6 billion pieces of mail and 360 million parcels each year, employing about 64,000 Canadians under collective agreements with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association.

The mandate combines universal service obligations (a single price for delivery to any Canadian address) with commercial revenue from parcels, advertising mail, and postal services for businesses. Letter-mail volume has declined sharply with email and online billing, while parcel volumes have grown with e-commerce. Canada Post competes with FedEx, UPS, Purolator (a Canada Post subsidiary since 1987), and Amazon Logistics in the parcel market.

Canada Post issues commemorative stamps, including annual Christmas issues, Indigenous heritage stamps, and historical-anniversary stamps. The corporation operates the Canadian Postal Museum and runs the popular Letter to Santa programme that responds in 30 languages each Christmas. Recent policy debates have addressed postal banking (proposed by some advocates), the future of community mailboxes, and the Postal Service Charter that guarantees five-day-a-week delivery to most addresses. The 2024 to 2025 national postal strike led to a federal mediator's recommendations and ongoing service-modernisation discussions.