It’s a service. It’s not supposed to be profitable.

Canada post is a service. Its job is to provide a service to every person in the country, not to generate profit for shareholders. When it’s doing well, it can self sustain, which is cool, otherwise it costs money through tax dollars as would any services we pay for.

Agreed, this isn’t complicated. We either want it to exist and we pay for it, or it goes away.

1.3 Billion is staggering. Divided equally amongst all Canadians, we’re paying about $32 each.

Postal banking. The workers want it and even presented a proposal to the corporate leadership, who said no.

That said, delivering mail isn’t supposed to be profitable. It’s supposed to provide people with their mail.

Alternate title: Canada Post reports cost of 32.5 per Canadian.

I think this misses the point. Whether it is a service or not, it needs to be run well so we don’t end up wasting our tax dollars. It seems to be losing far more money than ever before and there should be consequences for that. There are basic reforms that should have been implemented that are now costing us.

“The federal government needs to change their mandate, defending rural areas isn’t profitable so we should scale back the military”

“The provincial government needs to change their mandate, providing healthcare to old people isn’t profitable so we should scale back hospitals and just let them fend for themselves”

It would cut into the capital available to commercial banks, so of course it won’t happen. RBC, TD, CIBC, BMO and Scotia do not want to lose those sweet customer deposits.

Same reason we don’t get public rail and public telecomms: essential services can only be delivered if they make a rich person richer.

I wonder if it would help if we banned fly-by-night couriers that Amazon et al use and diverted more of that volume through CP.

They’d be better-paying jobs, too.

Canada Post doesn’t cost us anything.

Again with the “losing money” narrative. It doesn’t lose money, it costs money.

Now. Does it cost so much more than ever before? I don’t know. And if it does, why is that? Good questions.

But if it doesn’t cost proportionally so much more but we all stopped buying stamps or using the paid services it provides to subsidize its operational costs then that would explain the deficit. Otherwise we’d need to ask more pointed questions, I’m with you on that

But you can’t slap “basic reforms” on something when you don’t see or understand the larger underlying picture past the sensationalist headline and that’s unfortunately the point where most people stop asking questions

I remember when my wife worked there this came up. It’s like adding typewriter repair and buggy whip sales as a business division. No relevant consumer is asking for this when you can do it all on your phone, even deposit cheques, if you don’t already do it on a desktop.

You’ll get a bunch of high-maintenance old people that still want to pay their bills in person and can’t, and it’ll lose money hand over fist.

It also isn’t going to work in Quebec since we already have Desjardins, and like what 70%+ of people here bank with them?

I think this misses the point. Whether the fire department is a service or not, it needs to be run well so we don’t end up wasting our tax dollars.

You’ll get a bunch of high-maintenance old people that still want to pay their bills in person and can’t, and it’ll lose money hand over fist.

I really don’t think that that’s an inevitability. Functionally, they would become very similar to a credit union and this would actually give Canada Post more flexibility as an organization to expand their parcel services as well as reconsider their utility to the average Canadian by offering financial services.

Canada Post is already very entwined with the Royal Canadian Mint through collectible coins and also sells money orders. Adding postal banking could be the start of a small portfolio of auxiliary services that Canadians find valuable in addition to their usual mail and parcel delivery. This would especially be a boon in rural or low-income areas where dedicated banking services are far away or unaffordable.

There’s a reason dedicated banking services are unaffordable in rural areas; it’s because they’re unprofitable. Chasing unprofitable models is notoriously unprofitable.

Profitable? Why is that a consideration?

So what?

That’s the problem. They want Canada Post to break even or be profitable. It should be a service like the military and DFO.