For the past five years, Robert Bizley of Oshawa has made it a daily routine to check his mailbox, pull out the flyers, and toss them into his blue bin without taking a look.
But Bizley’s mailbox has been unusually empty this week because the Canadian Union of Postal Workers had announced that it would stop delivering flyers starting last Monday to put more pressure on Canada Post, which had not responded to the union’s counter-offer for four weeks.
“I would like it to be a forever thing,” Bizley said of the pause in flyer distribution. The 65-year-old database administrator grew up reading flyers that came with newspapers and making buying decisions based on them. But in recent years, he has switched to online flyer services, such as Flipp.
The suspension of flyer delivery has sparked two opposing reactions among many Canadians on social media. Some, like Bizley, were quietly pleased by the absence of flyers, seeing them as nothing more than an outdated tradition and a waste, while others expressed regret. Some small businesses said the loss of the marketing avenue and the uncertainty around Canada Post’s strike will hurt their bottom line.
Canada Post still relies heavily on revenue from flyers, which are part of its Direct Marketing stream, accounting for 15 per cent of total revenue in 2024.
The Crown agency allows customers to opt out of unaddressed advertising, including flyers, by placing a note on their mailbox stating they do not wish to receive it.
Canada Post said on Thursday that it will present a new contract offer to 53,000 employees in an attempt to restart stalled negotiations and asked the unionized workers to deliver flyers that are already in the system.
The union told the Star in a statement that it will review the offer, and the ban on processing flyers will remain in place until further notice.
With access to digital flyers, Bizley said, “I’d have to believe that a larger percentage of the population doesn’t need flyers to do their shopping.”
He expressed particular frustration over the Crown agency’s use of plastic bags for flyer delivery, citing the environmental harm.
Kenneth B. Wong, a marketing professor at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, said flyers are used more heavily than some think.
While young Canadians may prefer digital flyers to find deals, many still value the tactile experience of paper, he added, especially customers of grocery, hardware, and home improvement stores, who tend to skew older.
“It’s a bit more tangible. They feel that they can flip through the flyer faster because they can see the entire page at a glance,” Wong said.
A 2020 Postmedia survey of more than 4,500 Canadians found that 85 per cent read printed flyers at least occasionally, and more than half said they read them every time.
“Millions of dollars are invested by our members in these flyers,” said Kim Furlong, the CEO of Retail Council of Canada. “I can tell you, if they were not effective, our retailers would not be investing in that mode of communication.”
Furlong added that while fewer people may pay attention to flyers, many rural communities still rely on them, and the inability of businesses to communicate with their customers is worrisome.
Audrey Jamieson, president of Marketing Kitchen, a marketing production services company, said the halt in delivering flyers is a “huge disruption” to her business. Her company has lost more than $200,000 due to cancelled orders when the postal workers’ union was in a strike position this May.
Jamieson said flyers remain popular because they let businesses such as restaurants and local services target specific neighbourhoods in a way digital marketing can’t match.
“The uncertainty to businesses like mine that rely on the post stream is worse than an actual strike itself,” she said. “Because people are just cancelling campaigns now.”
Matt Mills, who lives in Calgary, said he still checks physical flyers every week for deals at stores he frequents, such as Canadian Tire and local grocery chains, because he finds digital flyers overwhelming and not user-friendly.
“The value of flyers is that they give me an immediate check,” the 55-year-old project manager said, adding that he usually gives them a quick three-minute check in the kitchen before tossing the ones he doesn’t want.
When asked about the suspension of delivery, Mills said, “It’s unfortunate because it is probably the only piece of mail that I actually want to receive.”
