The Canadian Trucking Alliance is asking for clarification and transparency on federal Transformation, Public Works and Procurement Minister Lightbound’s announcement to introduce measures designed to stabilize Canada Post’s finances and enable its modernization.
The announcement follows a report earlier this year by the Industrial Inquiry Commission, which highlighted the state of the service and its solvency issues. In the report, both the union and management emphasized their interest for greater expansion into the parcel delivery market, including cross-border shipments.
While today’s announcement by Minister Lightbound does not specifically endorse this move, it does raise the issue of parcel delivery as a source of growth and highlighted Canada Post’s declining market share versus the private sector in this area and the service’s failure to pay attention to this gap:
“Twenty years ago, Canada Post delivered 5.5 billion letters annually. Today, it delivers only 2 billion, even as the number of households has grown. That means fewer letters are being delivered to more addresses, while fixed costs remain high. At the same time, parcels volumes — which should have been Canada Post’s growth opportunity — have declined. In 2019, Canada Post delivered 62% of parcels in Canada; today, its market share has dropped below 24%, with private competitors taking the lead. Structural challenges, combined with outdated restrictions and stalled negotiations between labour and management, have further limited the corporation’s ability to adapt… this situation is unsustainable. Canada Post is effectively insolvent, and repeated bailouts are not a long-term solution. Transformation is required to ensure the survival of Canada Post and protect the services Canadians rely on.”
The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) believes the Minister needs to hold public consultations on Canada Post’s potential expansion into the parcel business.
“CTA does not support the expansion of public sector entities into the freight market,” said CTA President and CEO Stephen Laskowski.