Canada Post is moving ahead with plans to end home delivery and will begin converting 136,000 homes across the country to community mailboxes later this year, including 18,000 addresses in Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Etobicoke North riding.
In a press release Thursday, the Crown corporation also announced it would begin “market reviews” of post offices across the country, as it considers which locations to close.
The Etobicoke addresses being converted are in the areas with postal codes beginning with M9V and M9W.
“The Corporation has reached a turning point and is taking action to ensure it can meet the evolving needs of Canadians in a financially sustainable way,” Canada Post said in its press release. “Canada Post’s transformation will strengthen the postal service, allow it to be a better partner for businesses, enable national commerce, and help it meet its dual mandate of delivering for all Canadians without being a recurring burden on taxpayers.”
The announcement comes just days before 56,000 postal workers begin voting on a tentative contract agreement with Canada Post. Voting by members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) begin April 20 and ends May 30.
There was no immediate reply to several requests for comment from Ward 1 city councillor Vince Crisanti, who represents most of the affected addresses, or from Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.
The area is represented at Queen’s Park by Ford. The premier’s office office didn’t immediately reply for comment. Ford doesn’t live at one of the affected addresses.
CUPW, which has previously said the restructuring will result in thousands of job losses, also didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Crown Corporation said it will “engage with communities” while it finds “suitable” locations for the community mailboxes.
“Canada Post … is also notifying residents of the upcoming change to their mail delivery, and will keep them, businesses, (unions) and employees informed every step of the way,” the press release added.
More than three quarters of Canadians already get their mail delivered to community mailboxes.
Canada Post said it expects to convert the remaining four million homes getting home delivery to community mailboxes within five years, and will still provide home-delivery service for people who need it, including seniors or people with mobility issues. The delivery accommodation program will require “supporting documentation” as part of any application.
The Crown corporation says it is reaching out to 13 communities across the country as it prepares to begin the conversion process “in late 2026 and early 2027.”
It’s no coincidence that the affected addresses are spread out across the country, argued York University labour studies professor Steven Tufts.
“It’s a politically-constructed list,” said Tufts, who also noted that 30,000 addresses are on the list in Ottawa, where Canada Post’s headquarters are located.
Tufts also scoffed at the notion that Canada Post needs a “market survey” to figure out which post offices it wants to close.
“You don’t have a spreadsheet somewhere? Come on,” said Tufts. “I have a hard time believing that they wouldn’t have had a list already made with Xs on it.”
The Crown corporation is expected to announce later this month that it suffered its eighth straight annual loss in 2025. Officials said in December that it was on pace to break last year’s record annual loss of $1.3 billion.
In late September, the federal government gave the green light for a broad restructuring of Canada Post, including elimination of home delivery, increased use of community mailboxes and shuttering of some rural post offices.
Joël Lightbound, federal minister of Government Transformation, Public Services and Procurement, said at the time the restructuring was necessary to fight an “existential crisis” faced by the financially struggling Crown corporation.
Thursday, Lightbound reiterated the necessity of the restructuring.
“Repeated bailouts by the federal government are not a long-term solution for Canada Post. It needs to transform,” said Lightbound, who noted that the Crown corporation has racked up over $5 billion in losses over the last few years. “The federal government has had to reinject two billion dollars just to keep it afloat. That’s unsustainable.”
Many of the changes approved by the minister were recommended in a May, 2025 report by the Industrial Inquiry Commission led by veteran mediator William Kaplan.
Within hours of Lightbound’s September announcement, CUPW launched its second national strike in a year. That strike was subsequently downgraded to a series of rotating regional strikes.
On Nov. 7, the Crown corporation gave the federal government its implementation plan for the restructuring, but said it wouldn’t make details public until the plan is finalized and approved.
The union has said the restructuring would lead to service cutbacks and job losses.
Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger reiterated before a parliamentary committee in December that the Crown corporation is expecting 16,000 employees to retire or take voluntary departure by 2030, with another 14,000 leaving by 2035.
