Results come as corporation reports loss before tax of $205 million in first quarter of 2026
Canada Post workers have voted to accept new collective agreements, ending a prolonged period of labour uncertainty.
Members of both the Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMC) unit and the Urban Postal Operations unit cast ballots over six weeks on tentative agreements reached with Canada Post in December 2025 and finalized at the end of January.
According to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) today, the RSMC unit voted 85.9% in favour of the tentative agreement, while Urban Postal Operations members approved their agreement by an even wider margin of 89%.
"Over the course of this round of bargaining, postal workers have faced enormous challenges," said CUPW national president Jan Simpson in the union's June 1 bulletin. "It has not been easy, but members have stood strong."
The union noted that audited regional and local breakdowns of the vote results are still to come.
What new agreements include
Both the Urban and RSMC agreements are five-year contracts set to expire Jan. 31, 2029.
According to tentative agreements reached in December, key terms included a 6.5% wage increase in the first year — incorporating a 5% raise already received — followed by 3% in year two, with subsequent years tied to the Consumer Price Index.
The December agreement also included no changes to the existing defined benefit (DB) pension plan, an enhanced health benefits package, improved income replacement for injury and short-term disability leave, and 13 personal days locked into the collective agreement.
A new operating model to support weekend parcel delivery would apply to both units, according to the December agreement. RSMC employees would also move to an hourly rate of pay under the new deal, and their job security provisions have been strengthened.
However, the parties finalized some "outstanding contractual language" in late January to finalize the tentative agreements which include higher wage increases, enhanced benefits and a weekend parcel delivery model, said a Jan. 29 release from Canada Post.
Losses mount at Canada Post
The ratification comes as Canada Post grapples with serious financial strain. In a news release dated April 16, 2026 — later updated with first-quarter results posted May 29, 2026 — the corporation reported a loss before tax of $205 million in the first quarter of 2026, a deterioration of $164 million compared to a loss of $41 million in the same period of 2025. Revenue fell by $181 million, or 14.3%, year-over-year.
Canada Post attributed part of the damage directly to the unresolved labour situation. According to the corporation's Q1 results, Parcels revenue dropped $79 million, or 17.1%, as customers shifted deliveries to competitors offering more certainty.
"Parcel volumes will be slow to win back," the corporation warned, "reinforcing the critical need to transform in a competitive market."
Transaction mail revenue fell $82 million, or 13.7%, partly due to unfavourable comparisons with early 2025, when letter mail volumes had surged following a backlog from the late-2024 labour disruption, according to Canada Post. Direct marketing revenue declined $24 million, or 13.4%, with the corporation noting some marketers have continued to migrate to digital channels, including artificial intelligence (AI).
At the group level, the Canada Post Group of Companies — which includes Purolator — posted a loss before tax of $251 million in Q1 2026. Purolator was a relative bright spot, recording a profit before tax of $23 million, up $4 million from the same quarter a year earlier.
Canada Post noted that its operations have historically been funded by revenue from products and services, but that in 2025 it began receiving repayable federal government cash injections to prevent insolvency.
Transformation underway
Even as the ratification vote was ongoing, Canada Post announced it was moving ahead with a multi-year transformation. In an April 16, 2026 news release, the corporation said it was beginning preliminary work on two fronts:
- converting the roughly four million Canadian addresses that still receive door-to-door mail delivery to community mailboxes
- modernizing its retail post office network.
Canada Post said roughly 136,000 addresses across nine communities — including parts of Ottawa, Etobicoke, Winnipeg, Moncton, and several British Columbia municipalities — are slated to begin converting to community mailboxes in late 2026 and early 2027. The full national conversion program is expected to take about five years.
On the retail side, the corporation cited a 30% drop in retail revenue since 2021 as justification for reviewing and modernizing its post office network, with changes expected to focus first on urban and suburban areas it described as currently over-served.
The corporation said it remains committed to protecting postal services in rural, remote and Indigenous communities throughout the transformation process.
