55 000 Canada Post workers went on nationwide strike on September 25, 2025, in response to sweeping reforms proposed by the federal government that the union argues threaten jobs and critical delivery services. The North Star visited picket lines across the country to speak with postal workers.
“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 president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) said. This announcement came a few hours after the Maritime regional leadership of the CUPW called for a regional strike, followed by other regions across the country, forcing the union’s national leadership to react.
The strike is a direct response to the announcement made by Joël Lightbound, the Minister responsible for the postal service, that Canada Post will be implementing recommendations made by William Kaplan’s Independent Inquiry Commission in May 2025 to prevent “insolvency”.
These reforms include converting 4 million addresses into community mailboxes, ending door-to-door delivery for millions of homes. The reforms also include closing down thousands of rural post offices, eliminating the requirement to deliver five days a week, and giving Canada Post the ability to raise its stamp rates more frequently. In addition to the service cuts, all of this could lead to considerable job losses.
Postal workers interviewed by The North Star described the government’s reforms as “undemocratic” and a “direct attack” on universal postal services. “We were trying to work with them in a proper way,” said Chris Mackling from Winnipeg. “Now things are being forced upon us by one person’s findings. That’s very frustrating. We need to be part of this.”
On the picket line in Halifax, Dwayne Corner, president of the Nova Scotia local, is outraged: “What the Kaplan report is going to do is gut the corporation and destroy the workers’ rights, protections, and jobs we have. It’s going to hurt the communities we serve. And if they ultimately pull out of door-to-door delivery, only the bigger centres like Montreal and Toronto will survive.”
Some 1300 kilometres from Halifax, The North Star met Mike Videca, a rural-suburban mail carrier near Kingston. He believes replacing door-to-door delivery with community mailboxes and shutting down rural offices will seriously impact vulnerable community members.
“I’m out in the rural areas and there are a lot of old people that don’t have ways to pay their bill online because they don’t have internet service out there. The only way they can get their cheques and their bills is through mail. Community mailboxes are not close to people’s houses. They would be driving up to 20 minutes to a community mailbox. It’s not efficient.”
Workers worry that if rural residents are forced to travel farther for postal services, many will switch to private competitors, costing Canada Post customers and revenue. At the same time, the closure of rural offices and reassignment of rural staff to urban offices while they continue serving rural routes would mean longer commutes, higher per-kilometre reimbursements and greater cost inefficiency for Canada Post.
Workers question why they are being punished for corporate mismanagement
Canada Post workers across the country are frustrated that they are bearing the costs of financial mismanagement by the company, while senior executives are rewarded with bonuses year after year. They question why Canada Post’s CEO, Doug Ettinger, who has been running deficits for six years, has not been replaced by the government.
“Nobody questions how he’s running things. ‘We’re going to cut public services, we’re going to reform things so Canada Post becomes profitable.’ But can we first look at how Canada Post is managed before cutting right where regular people, us, work?” asked Stephania Mossignac, a Canada Post shop floor delegate whom The North Star met in Montreal. “Once again, the government is playing games with us. Once again, we [the workers] are the last link in the chain. We’re the ones paying for mistakes made by somebody who’s been paid $648,000 a year since 2019.”
Tim Burns, a postal worker in Kingston who has been with the company for 20 years, feels that Canada Post’s claims about bankruptcy and insolvency are a result of a “manufactured crisis.”
“After COVID-19, [Canada Post] went on a spending spree. $750 million new plant, new urban vehicles, new rural vehicles, all new mail sites across the country, all new scanners across the country. Just spending, spending, spending and then: ‘we’re broke!’” Burns shared that Canada Post put one billion aside for a new urban fleet of trucks, but the trucks have not been purchased, and the money remains sitting in a bank account. He also shared that the company purchased 7,000 trucks for rural areas that remain largely unused.
Postal workers share a distrust of mainstream media, which they believe is anti-union and has pushed Canada Post and the government’s narrative, the interests of management, of the corporation, and of elites in the country.
“It’s us [the workers] vs. the trifecta. You’ve got CBC telling you guys [Canadians] what they want you to know. You’ve got the government, and you’ve got Canada Post. They’re all in bed together,” says Tim Burns.
Sacrifices for a larger cause
Despite their frustrations with Minister Lightbound’s announcements, a lot of postal workers The North Star has spoken with feel burnt out from the ongoing labour struggles of the last two years. The decision to return to strike action is not unanimous and is causing internal tensions at different levels, depending on the region. Not to mention that the government has already exercised its powers to invoke section 107 of the Canada Labour Code and force striking workers back to work last November, pushing them back into a corner.
Amid the uncertainty of ongoing negotiations and strike action, workers face the harsh reality of lost wages, mounting bills and mortgages and deep concerns about their job security in an already weakening economy.
However, despite facing financial insecurity as a result of the strike, many remain united. Their struggle, they say, matters not only for the future of Canada Post but also for public services across the country.
“I know my co-workers’ financial situation isn’t ideal,” says François Kirsh, a shop floor delegate in Montreal, Québec. “We recently went on strike for 32 days, during which time we sacrificed a lot financially, it’s true. And things are getting worse and worse. Inflation hit us hard, and it’s going up again next year. But that also means the money we don’t have today, we’ll have even less next year, and even less in two years if we don’t fight now.”
“If you’re fighting for ideals, to try to improve the lives of workers—but also society as a whole, the lives of the broader population—then you have to do it. It’s a fight that goes beyond one strike, beyond the conflict in a single workplace.”