Government Operations Committee on June 18th, 2026

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Good morning, everyone. We are in session. Welcome to meeting number 47 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, known, of course, as the mighty OGGO.

We welcome back our friends from Canada Post.

Thanks for joining us today.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I can't hear the interpretation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Is there anyone here? Oh, the translators are remote today.

Anyway, welcome back, Mr. Ettinger and team. The floor is yours for an opening statement.

Go ahead, sir.

[Doug Ettinger, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation]

Good morning, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Doug Ettinger. I'm the president and CEO of Canada Post. With me are my colleagues Alexandre Brisson, chief operating officer, and Rindala El-Hage, chief financial officer.

Thank you for opportunity to join you today to talk about our major transformation.

Before we get to your questions, I'd like to share a quick update. First, we have new ratified collective agreements in place with our employees represented by CUPW. We're very, very pleased with that. Our employees voted overwhelmingly in favour of the agreements—in fact, 89% for the urban unit and almost 86% for the rural unit—which will remain in effect until end of January 2029. These are not status quo agreements. They recognize that Canada Post needs to change. For example, we can now move forward with affordable weekend parcel delivery with our new part-time staffing model in order to be more competitive in the marketplace.

For customers, it means that we can provide the certainty needed to rebuild their trust and hopefully win back their support, which we are actively working on right now. For small businesses that depend on us, it means they can ship with confidence as we find new ways to help them grow their businesses and thrive. For employees, it means they have certainty and stability as we move forward with our transformation.

The new agreements bring us stability.

It's very busy at Canada Post right now, as we're rebuilding the business and also actively transforming the company.

In previous discussions, you asked about our difficult financial situation and how it got to this point. The reality is that for the last 20 years Canada Post has faced the same structural challenges confronting every western postal operator: persistent letter mail erosion, driven by digital substitution and coupled with rising per unit delivery costs as the number of addresses continues to grow. Obviously, you have a problem if you're faced with declining revenue and increasing costs.

We serve all Canadians, and we're very, very proud to do so. However, compared to our counterparts in other countries, we have the additional costs and complexities of serving a population in all corners of the world's second-largest land mass; plus, our population density is amongst the lowest in the world. That is a very bad combination in logistics. Serving all Canadians is our mandate. It also requires us to do so on a self-sustaining financial basis. It's basically a user-pay system, but as Canadians started to change their habits years ago, the mandate fell out of balance. Numerous studies have been completed over the years, and they all concluded that, without major changes, Canada Post was heading for a fiscal cliff.

The situation was unsustainable.

Unfortunately, the policy and regulatory fetters remained in place as successive governments did not prioritize the need for change. The inevitable losses began to mount. That's why we are incredibly grateful to Minister Lightbound and the government, who understand how important the postal service is to Canadians and that it needs to change to serve a stronger, more economically resilient country.

With the lifting of moratoriums on community mailboxes and our post office network and with other changes, we now have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to renew and re-establish Canada Post to serve the growing needs of our country. The work we have been doing to get ready for this, such as building our processing and our IT capacity, means we are very ready and already taking action in the marketplace.

Let me be clear, though: To properly transform, some things are going to have to change. However, we can do so in a way that creates a better service tailored to the current and modern needs of a growing country.

This is a unique opportunity to improve our services.

Let me give you some examples.

By converting the remaining households to community mailboxes, nearly all mail and parcels delivered by Canada Post will be delivered under lock and key, increasing security and convenience while reducing our delivery costs and focusing real support on those who need the assistance.

With the ability to finally look at our post office network through today’s lens and begin to make changes, we can better focus resources where they are needed the most.

Without the ability to change since 1994, our post office network has fallen out of balance. From a service standpoint, we’re overbuilt in urban areas and challenged in rural communities, where the service is really needed the most.

We need to take steps to rebalance our post office network. That means some post offices in over-serviced areas will have to close in order for us to invest in service improvements and address long-standing challenges in some rural, remote and northern communities.

We can certainly discuss this in more detail, and I'm sure we will, but these examples demonstrate our commitment to introduce new innovations and improve productivity, which will allow us to prioritize investments and hopefully improve a vital service for rural, remote and northern communities that only Canada Post serves.

I look forward to your questions, but let me leave you with this. As those past studies all predicted, the fiscal cliff did arrive for Canada Post. It arrived some time ago. It’s a situation that we take very seriously. We’re just as concerned by our losses as you are, if not more so. We can’t change the past, but I want to reassure you that we are 100% focused on the future and our transformation. We now have the responsibility and the accountability to turn the corner, provide a better service and return to financial sustainability.

It’s a very big job, but we have an incredibly talented and determined team that will deliver for Canadians—and ensure we pay them back for the loans as quickly as possible.

The story of where we are today and how we got here is well documented, but judge us on our performance moving forward as we write a new, exciting, historic chapter—a TSN turning point, for those sports fans in the crowd—for Canada’s postal service.

For the postal service, there will be a before and an after.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Ettinger.

We'll start with Mrs. Block, but, colleagues, before we do, we have Mr. Ettinger for a full two hours. I'm going to be, as we often are, a bit loose with our time to allow a proper response, but if you're asking an open question, try to leave at least 30 seconds. We'll allow him extra time because we have so much, but don't ask a question with two seconds left and expect us to give an extra minute. Just keep an eye on that, and we'll be as flexible as we can with everyone.

Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ettinger, for joining us today, and thank you to your colleagues as well.

Welcome back. I think we've seen you a few times in the last 18 months.

Your Q1 report for this year provides an update on page 5 of the transformation plan. We know that Canada Post submitted the plan to Minister Lightbound eight months ago, and although you were given permission to begin consultations on your plan, it has still not been approved. Is that correct?

[Doug Ettinger]

To my knowledge, that is correct.

We submitted the plan on November 7 to the minister and PSPC. There has been a lot of conversation, a lot of clarification and a lot of new information provided, and as you noted, we are moving forward on a couple of the core principles of that: community mailboxes and assessing our post office portfolio out in the marketplace.

We've started that. We're confident that the plan is a very good plan. There are no surprises in there. I think I said that the last time I was here. There won't be anything in there that you wouldn't have thought of already, I'm sure, especially given the study this group has done on it. We're very confident, but we're still waiting for support to move further.

We're ready. We've been preparing in the background, and we have a full transformation team ready to go.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

There was a real sense of urgency last fall, when the minister announced that some of the moratoriums were going to be lifted and, I guess, demanded a transformation plan within 45 days. It's a little troubling that it's taken eight months and counting for you to get approval from the minister.

Can you tell us how long consultations will last on this transformation plan?

[Doug Ettinger]

That's a great question. Unfortunately, I don't know that. I think you may want to ask the minister that. Again, we're in very close conversations about all of the details of it and clarifying it.

We have our team. While there was space over the last several months, we've created 10 work streams in our transformation program that are ready to go. Two of the bigger ones are the ones that are under way. We have the community mailboxes. We've announced two waves of those already. We've announced all of the ones that are planned for next year. There are another 500,000 addresses. With that alone, which will take a few years—it's not instant coffee; it's not going to happen overnight—there will be savings of between $400 million and $500 million a year, plus we'll reduce injuries and GHGs, etc.

I think the two programs are really important in this overall transformation.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

In your opening remarks, you talked about Canada Post's excitement about writing a new and exciting chapter. Your Q3 report in 2025 said you will need amendments to the postal service charter. Have those amendments taken place?

[Doug Ettinger]

No, but we are working on those diligently with the department. We're going back and forth on those. Those are amendments regarding letter mail that will change letter mail timing across the country. It doesn't mean that we won't be delivering letter mail on a regular basis, but we will have more time. Rather than put a lot of the letter mail in air cargo, we're going to be able to put it on the ground, save quite a bit of money and help save the environment a little.

We're pretty comfortable that we're working closely with the government to get alignment on that. It has not been approved, but the teams are very focused. We have proposals that we feel pretty good about right now.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

That's another question for the minister, perhaps.

[Doug Ettinger]

Yes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

When you visited this committee last, the chair asked if you had the ability to close post offices in the middle of urban cities. You said you would take direction from the government, but, ultimately, you could do it yourself.

Has the minister given you direction on what should constitute a rural post office? I think we've talked quite a bit about what the definition of a rural post office is.

[Doug Ettinger]

That's a really good point. There was really no definition of rural. From 1994, there was a list of post offices that were not to be closed. That moratorium is off.

I will stress that we're approaching this very thoughtfully. The rural ones are even more important. There isn't a divide between rural and urban, but we're really going to look at it with a community lens. We're not going to do a one-off and not look at the surrounding post offices and what the community needs. We're going to consult with the community, get their feedback and see how they're using the post office. People have really changed the way they use the post office since then. Before, they were buying a lot of stuff at the post office, like money orders and things like that. Now, they're dropping off their parcels and they're dropping off their returns—

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[Doug Ettinger]

—so it's very different.

I'm sorry. I was going on.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

No. Thank you for your explanation.

I would just say I know many rural communities are feeling very anxious about the announcement that was made almost a year ago, so I think coming up with that definition and conducting those consultations sooner, rather than later, would be very important to provide some certainty.

[Doug Ettinger]

I totally agree with you. That is our intent. Recently, we've been to the federations of municipalities meetings—both the Canadian one and the Quebec one. We had a booth there, and we were consulting with all of the mayors who were there. We're going to be very thoughtful about that.

If a rural post office is the only one in a certain area, even if its revenue is low or its profitability is poor, there's a very good chance it's going to stay where it is.

I was going to add one thing, but I won't.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Go ahead.

[Doug Ettinger]

I was going to add that in urban areas—and this is not always the case—we have a lot of overlap. We have a lot of duplication of dealer post offices and our own corporate post offices. That's the first wave. That's where we'll go first to try to address some duplication. We're over-serviced in those areas, and we're under-serviced in a lot. We'll be able to redeploy some of those resources to the areas that really need it, which is what I was getting at in my opening comments.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sudds, go ahead.

[Jenna Sudds, Liberal, Kanata, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ettinger, and your team, for being with us today.

I would like to build on the questions from my colleague.

Back in September 2025, Minister Lightbound announced a series of measures aimed at consolidating underutilized Canada Post offices and reducing operating costs.

I recently was alerted to a notification in my community around QR codes being provided or stationed at four post office locations, three of which are urban and one is rural, in my community that are intended, I believe, to give constituents the opportunity to provide feedback on this path forward. Can you speak a bit about what that entails, please?

[Doug Ettinger]

Thank you. That's an important question.

Building on my last answer, we're very empathetic to the rural areas and the urban areas. We don't want to move too quickly and surprise people. We want to get their feedback. That is one of our first measures. The QR code takes them online where there's a survey to find out how they're using the post office, what gaps they see, if there are other services they could use, and if they're not using the post office, why that is happening. It's our first effort to get broad feedback. That's across the country, so we want to get broad feedback from Canadians and put that feedback into our program as we go forward.

Essentially, it's going to boil down to listening to the communities, seeing what they have. If there are five little post offices within 10 kilometres, probably that's an area we're going to be looking to close one or more, but we'll look at maybe increasing the hours in another one or offering other services in another one.

Our goal here is to enhance service. We can't cut our way to success on this, absolutely not. Our focus...and this is what it boils down to. If consumers don't want to use Canada Post, we can do all the cutting we want in the world and it's not going to matter. We need to create a customer service environment—and we're very focused on this—where they want to use us and they can rely on us.

There are a whole bunch of innovations in the pipeline, which I might get a chance to highlight a little bit. We haven't been sitting around for the last couple of years, though. We've been just.... There's pent-up demand to get these programs out in the marketplace, and they are all about the customer and what works for them. They've changed their needs from 30 years ago. It's time that we modernized the post office network.