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submitted 12 hours ago by CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[-] uhmbah@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago

FYI,

RE Canada Post

The Corporation holds an interest in Purolator Courier, Innovapost, Progistix-Solutions and Canada Post International Limited

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Post

[-] d3lta19@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago

If it really is much cheaper to have community mailboxes, then they should convert everyone in Canada to them. I've only ever had a community mailbox and it is a perfectly reasonable way for me to get my mail.

[-] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 hour ago

No, mobility impaired and elderly people should be able to continue getting their mail to their door.

This is a service that should be reliable and accessible for everyone. Cost savings aren't more valuable than that.

[-] Krusty@quokk.au 1 points 1 hour ago

They are doing the same thing with the USPS....

[-] orioler25@lemmy.ca 17 points 7 hours ago

I'm honestly concerned by the amount of comments in this short comment section that suggests many of you do not actually know what Canada Post is. The reason they value profit imperatives is that, as a crown corporation, Canada Post is a neoliberal response to the success and increasing costs of public services in the mid- to late-twentieth century. Even though it is state owned and operated, it is fundamentally founded on the notion that business-based decision making is a more "efficient" and therefore less costly way to organize a system. This is wrong, obviously, but the consequence of that is we are forced to protect Canada Post as it does actually exist as the only publicly-owned postal service in Canada and is therefore crucial to protecting vulnerable communities from exploitatively expensive access to a basic need like the mail is. They talk about cost-saving measures as they ultimately view this as a revenue stream that has effectively appropriated what ought to be a public service in the way that healthcare and education is (I'm sure you can all relate this to the trajectory that those public services have also taken in the past fifty years).

Basic sources that you should read if you're uninformed on this:

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/crown-corporation

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canada-post-corporation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Post

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purolator_Inc. (Purolator is also known to have worse labour conditions than Canada Post, and handles much of their package delivery traffic)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast (not directly related to Canada Post, but rather the overall privatization of public services and works)

Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007).

Jones, Gareth Stedman. The Political Theory of Neoliberalism. (2013).

[-] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 0 points 42 minutes ago

You sound like a very smart person.

Now explain how talking in an arrogant tone and sprinkling in as much jargon as possible into your speech is going to get the working class on board with your little movement.

Or do you think a socialist movement can be successful without the working class?

[-] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -3 points 6 hours ago

Using what criteria are you comparing the postal service to public education or healthcare?

[-] HobbitFoot 9 points 6 hours ago

The post office is the initial technology of the government for communication and low scale cargo connectivity. It acts as a conduit between a people and its government. It is often the first presence of sovereignty in any country since it shows that the settlement is connected to the rest of a country.

[-] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -4 points 4 hours ago

Are you describing the pony express? Times and needs change.

[-] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 10 points 4 hours ago

What's important is that there is some form of public service communication that everyone can access. The mail is safe to deprecate if and only if internet access is a public service instead: if every person gets a computer or smartphone with an internet connection for free.

That would honestly be a great system, but that's not one Canadians have. So the post should stay.

[-] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 hours ago

When was the last time you used canada post for communication? Even my 86 yr old friend uses email. Libraries have internet access, so it already is a free public service. I support Canada Post staying, but only if the people that use it pay for the cost.

[-] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 59 minutes ago

I got my passport in the mail recently. All ID renewal needs costless delivery. So that's everyone that would use it.

[-] ArchEngel@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 hour ago

Not everywhere has a library though, and not everyone can afford a phone or pc, so what to do about those people who do need the mail?

[-] orioler25@lemmy.ca 0 points 6 hours ago

What I stated explicitly in my comment. Reread it, if you will.

[-] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -1 points 4 hours ago

Then your criteria make no sense. Just because it is state owned does not mean it has to operate at a loss. It is providing a service to businesses, and persons. I don't want taxpayers to subsidize businesses - let them pay what it costs. The other stuff you wrote sounds like word salad.

[-] GodofLies@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

You are only viewing this as a business. Not a public service. Private delivery companies can refuse to deliver for any reason. Now, let's take this into the context of sensitive parcels or mail-in voting. How do you know for sure that this future version of delivery will deliver it in good faith when it is in the hands of private control? Laws, rules and legislation be damned even if they exist for when there are high stakes things involved we know there is risk of cheating (like elections). Why would you even want to invite such a risk? We also know that the government are incredibly bad at keeping public data secure - so I wouldn't count on a fully electronic voting system.

Look at what electronic payment providers (Visa and Mastercard) have done to artists and indie developers. They are being deplatformed simply because under the eyes of these payment processors, they do not fit their broad and obscure guidelines, when the hosting platform (Steam and Patreon for example) and laws itself allows for such content. Under a neutral payment processor this wouldn't have happened. People's lives and income streams would collapse overnight.

Now look at media companies, are you also suggesting that CBC should be sold off and privatized when it's obvious that every private media company out there is out to push their version of propaganda and bias? Last I checked CBC doesn't make money either.

Using modern technology to fill in much of the services, while viable, is simply not a complete solution and it invites more risk than necessary.

The cost for sending parcels domestically is relatively cheap only because we are collectively subsidizing it - which in turn every Canadian actually benefits from this. This anchors the prices of parcel delivery among the private ones to stay relatively close to Canada Post's prices. You, in fact, benefit from this. Canada's population simply cannot be compared to many other country's postal rates because we do not have the population density for cheaper rates. What makes it worse is that Canada Post doesn't have the right of first refusal for any kind of mail or parcel delivery.

Your frustration with Canada Post should be directed at the series of federal governments that even let this happen in the first place when Canada Post itself have been telling the feds that they need to change their mandate for it to be more solvent.

Maybe you should also look into the cost of operating public transit, why Canada doesn't have a robust passenger rail network, and the duopoly of Air Canada and WestJet.

[-] orioler25@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

Great, do the readings then, it'll clear that up for you.

[-] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 22 points 7 hours ago

It shouldn't be asked to be profitable. Its a service ffs

[-] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -3 points 6 hours ago

The German postal service, Deutsche Post AG, reported a revenue of €83.43 billion in 2025, which reflects a slight decrease of 1.58% compared to the previous year. However, the operating profit (EBIT) was €6.1 billion, indicating a profit-making performance despite the revenue decline. This suggests that while the postal service is making a profit, it is not significantly impacted by the overall revenue decrease.

[-] BurgerBaron@quokk.au 17 points 6 hours ago

Is Germany a giant land mass sparsely populated?

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 hours ago

As per rfc2119 there is a difference between MAY be profitable and MUST be profitable.

And I'd argue it SHOULD NOT be profitable, since that's a measure of how much it's over-charging for what is a basic need (even for those who don't realize it is).

[-] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca -5 points 4 hours ago

Paper mail stopped being a basic need years ago. All I get are invitations to Hello Fresh and Pizza Pizza.

[-] d3lta19@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 hours ago

Just because you only get ads, doesn't mean that it isn't a basic need for a lot of people.

this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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