Canada Post suffers record quarterly loss as strike activity drives customers away

Canada Post reported the largest quarterly loss in its history as ongoing strike activity and labour uncertainty continued to push customers toward competitors.

The Crown corporation posted a loss before tax of $541 million in the third quarter of 2025, widening from a $315-million loss a year earlier. For the first nine months of the year, the company recorded a loss before tax of $989 million, compared with $345 million in the same period of 2024.

Canada Post said nearly all losses so far this year were incurred in the second and third quarters due to the significant impact of labour uncertainty on its business.

Parcels revenue fell sharply, dropping by about 40 per cent in the quarter as customers shifted volume elsewhere. The corporation has been operating without new collective agreements with its largest union, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and said strike activity and uncertainty about service disruptions continued to weigh on Parcels and Direct Marketing revenue.

Transaction Mail revenue rose, buoyed by stamp price increases and volume linked to election mailings and a surge in Lettermail following the national strike in late 2024.

Canada Post began receiving federal financial support in the third quarter, part of up to $1.034 billion in government funding announced earlier this year. The corporation said it expects to fully use that funding by Dec. 31 and will need to tap short-term financing to maintain operations over the following 12 months.

The government has directed Canada Post to begin a transformation plan that includes updating letter mail delivery standards, converting remaining home delivery to community mailboxes, modernizing its retail network and streamlining the stamp-price increase process. The corporation said the changes are intended to help ensure reliable, affordable service while reducing costs by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Operating costs fell 3.3 per cent in the quarter, though overall labour costs increased due to wage hikes and what the corporation called an “inefficient labour structure.”

The Canada Post Group of Companies reported a loss before tax of $481 million in the quarter, compared with a $252-million loss a year earlier. Purolator posted a profit before tax of $59 million, down slightly from $62 million in the third quarter of 2024.