Canada Post to End Door-to-Door Mail for 136,000 Homes and This Is Just the Beginning

Canada Post is finally pulling the plug on doorstep delivery for millions of Canadians and it’s starting sooner than many expected.

The national mail carrier confirmed Thursday that it has opened talks with 13 communities across the country to begin converting roughly 136,000 addresses from home delivery to community mailboxes in late 2026 and early 2027. The move marks the first concrete step in what Canada Post describes as a sweeping five-year national conversion plan one it says is essential to stop the bleeding from years of mounting financial losses.

The communities tapped for the initial wave of conversions span coast to coast: Moncton and Riverview in New Brunswick; Sept-Îles, La Prairie, and Candiac in Quebec; Ottawa; the Etobicoke area of Toronto; Winnipeg; and in British Columbia, Abbotsford, Mission, the City of North Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver, and West Vancouver.

Canada Post says most of these addresses already sit adjacent to areas served by community mailboxes, making them logical starting points. Still, the corporation was upfront that the transition won’t happen overnight. “Converting an address from door-to-door delivery to a community mailbox typically takes months,” the company noted, adding that it will engage directly with affected communities as it scouts suitable mailbox locations and will keep residents, businesses, employees, and union representatives informed throughout the process.

The pressure to act has been building for years. Government Transformation and Public Works Minister Joël Lightbound, speaking to reporters Thursday, didn’t mince words about the scale of the problem. Canada Post has racked up roughly $5 billion in deficits over recent years, he said, forcing the federal government to extend $2 billion in loans just to keep operations running.

“This is unsustainable,” Lightbound said flatly, framing the mailbox shift as a move that will save the Crown corporation “hundreds of millions of dollars.” The announcement, he added, is consistent with a broader package of reforms his government unveiled last fall designed to put Canada Post on stable financial footing for the long term.

While about four million Canadian addresses still receive mail directly at their doors, the majority of the country has long since shifted to centralized delivery systems. Canada Post is now moving to close that gap entirely.

Not everyone is on board with the direction.

NDP MP Don Davies called the announcement a betrayal, describing it as “a complete breaking” of promises made by past Liberal governments to protect home delivery. He urged the government to work more closely with the postal workers’ union and challenged Ottawa to envision a Canada Post that is “profitable, effective, and efficient” rather than one that is simply cutting costs.

On the other side of the aisle, Conservative MP Randy Hoback who represents a largely rural Saskatchewan riding shrugged off the concerns. Community mailboxes, he said, are already the norm across rural Saskatchewan and work well in practice. For him, the conversion is less a crisis than a long-overdue national catch-up.

Canada Post says customers who are unable to access community mailboxes due to health or mobility issues can apply to its delivery accommodation program to continue receiving mail at home.

The mailbox conversion plan isn’t the only structural change in motion. Canada Post also confirmed it is reviewing its retail network, with urban and suburban post offices in what it calls “over-served” areas facing potential closure. Foot traffic and in-store purchases at post offices have dropped sharply, with retail revenue down 30 percent since 2021 alone.

Rural, remote, and Indigenous communities have been explicitly carved out of these changes both the company and the government have promised that service to those areas will be protected. The federal government’s decision last year to end a long-standing moratorium on rural post office closures had already raised alarm bells in smaller communities, making those assurances especially important.

The announcement comes as Canadian Postal Workers Union members prepare to vote starting Monday on whether to ratify a new collective agreement a long-negotiated deal that has been in the works for some time. Voting is expected to run through May 30 to allow all employees the chance to participate.

The outcome of that vote may well shape the tone of the conversion process ahead and for the communities about to lose their daily doorstep delivery, the clock has already started ticking.