Canada Post strikes deal with Amazon
In a finger to its own union, Canada Post has struck a deal with Amazon to deliver its parcels in Quebec.
Saturday there was news of activists blocking warehouses belonging to Intelcom, which had been doing deliveries for Amazon.
But it’s harder to boycott our own postal service.
Meezly 14:14 on 2025-03-09 Permalink
Canada Post must be desperate for revenue? Still, the hypocrisy is astonishing.
steph 14:52 on 2025-03-09 Permalink
Since the union shenanigans started, all my amazon purchases have gone to Temu. A lesser of evils?
Chris 20:28 on 2025-03-09 Permalink
>Canada Post must be desperate for revenue?
I guess you are not aware that it lost $750 million last year? So, yeah, it’s desperate for revenue.
Just a couple of days ago, Denmark announced it’s getting rid of letter delivery, so the problem is not unique to here.
For me at least, weekly letter delivery would be fine vs daily, no letter I get is urgent.
bob 22:34 on 2025-03-09 Permalink
Amazon is to Temu as gonorrhea is to gonorrhea in your eyes.
Joey 09:51 on 2025-03-10 Permalink
How is it hypocritical for seemingly revenue-hungry Canada Post – *which is in the middle of a labour fight* – to take on new business? I understand how union members would be upset about seeing their workload grow to accommodate an anti-union decision made by a private business (even if they are fairly compensated for the additional work, which they probably won’t be), but I don’t really see what Canada Pots should have been expected to do differently – let a third-party company like Intelcom take it all? Would that be better?
dwgs 10:34 on 2025-03-10 Permalink
Our postie is a tells me that at least some employees were upset that CP failed to act quickly enough to get into the amazon/parcel business when it took off a few years ago. Also, their salary stays the same but with so much less mail they almost always finish early. He sees the writing on the wall and believes that the days of home delivery are numbered.
Meezly 10:56 on 2025-03-10 Permalink
Well, you seem to have already answered part of it. Not only is Amazon anti-union, its CEO is in cahoots with a regime that’s hell bent on destroying democracy, Canada-US relations and basic civil rights.
To answer my initial rhetorical question (which didn’t really need to be answered, btw), the BOD itself are the ones likely desperate for revenue and is probably going against the wishes of the majority of its workers. Canada Post may be a for-profit business, but as a crown corporation, part of its mandate is to serve the Canadian people and the federal government is also a major shareholder. I’d rather see our federal govt step in than have it turn to an avaricious tech oligarchy.
Joey 11:40 on 2025-03-10 Permalink
@Meezly I think those are good reasons for Canadians, and especially Quebeckers, not to shop at Amazon. They might even be legitimate reasons for Parliament or the National Assembly to try to legislate/regulate Amazon’s presence in Canada/Quebec. I suspect we are simply expecting too much of a crown corporation, desperate for revenue growth, to take a principled stance, especially given that they just locked out their workers a few months ago. Better for legislative assemblies to act than crown corporations, IMO.
Meezly 12:34 on 2025-03-10 Permalink
Perhaps hypocrisy wasn’t the right word as this is exactly the kind of decision the BOD would make, but it seems hypocritical as there is a serious conflict of interest for a public institution.
I was pleased to find this article which expresses my exact concerns: https://www.disconnect.blog/p/how-amazon-threatens-canadas-post-office
“It’s not so much a business in terminal decline, but one with bad management that has been making poor decisions about the future of a public institution. The limited vision of management paired with the government’s lack of interest in reimagining Canada Post’s future is part of what has put it in this bind.”
Joey 15:14 on 2025-03-10 Permalink
I don’t follow. The article says that the Amazon’s decision to use its own integrated logistics (including last-mile delivery) threatens Canada Post by diverting delivery volume away from the crown corporation:
“For a long time, Amazon was deeply reliant on Canada Post, a public institution, to deliver packages across the vastness of the country. It hasn’t completely abandoned the post office, but as it’s built out its own delivery network — one that makes use of non-union labor, if not precarious gig workers, the post office is facing yet another challenge to its attempts to remake itself as letter mail volumes continue to decline.”
Which, you know, yeah fair enough. But doesn’t Amazon’s decision to partner with Canada Post represent the complete opposite of that fear? Unless Amazon has negotiated a poison pill of some kind that CP management couldn’t identify, this is far from a worst-case scenario. It might even be the best plausible outcome – after all, unionized CP workers will be doing last-mile delivery for Amazon. That’s better than an anti-labour third-party private firm or even Amazon’s own delivery operation itself, no?
I suspect that the resistance is more along the lines of, ‘What Amazon did was unethical and should be condemned from all sides. No public institution, including Canada Post in its delivery service capacity or your local municipality in its procurement capacity, should have anything to do with Amazon.’ I think that’s a very legitimate and possibly even necessary position – but it’s one we should have in the political realm, not made by crown corp management or anonymous bureaucrats IMO. Amazon’s one-two punch of anti-labour closures and cozying up to Trump poses inherently political problems, which are best addressed by political processes and actors.