The Carney government has directed Canada Post to end door-to-door delivery of mail across the country, and shutter some post offices as part of an overhaul of the postal service’s operations.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Mark Carney was pretty good in New York talking to the United Nations this week, but can he do retail?
Shutting down home delivery of the mail is one way to find out.
As much as snail mail has been dying a slow death for decades now and plenty of younger Canadians wouldn’t be sad to see it go, there will also be many people upset that their mom now has to walk down an icy street to collect her mail.
Even in 2025, MPs can expect an earful from annoyed citizens, especially senior citizens. They aren’t always going to be placated by explanations about the declining economics of postal services or the necessity of tough trade-offs.
Mr. Carney won the spring election with his central banker’s résumé as Canadians faced the big-picture problem of a U.S. president launching a trade war and upending the stable relationship that this country had relied on for years.
But how good will the central banker be at handling the complaints that cutting off mail delivery is going to end up with Mom getting a broken hip? He can communicate a message about macro-economic challenges, but can he convince people he feels Grandma’s pain?
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Those day-to-day things will be creeping into the Prime Minister’s big-picture agenda more and more.
If you are telling people there are sacrifices to be made, it helps to be able to sell it with a little empathy. Mr. Carney has proven better at politics than many expected, but so far, he hasn’t been that guy.
Joël Lightbound, the Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement, made a pretty good case that home delivery isn’t what it used to be. Canada Post is losing $10-million a day, and at this point only about a quarter of Canadians have mail delivered to their door.
Still, the Liberal government won’t be immune to discontent now. Previous governments sure felt headaches when they messed with the mail. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government planned to phase out home delivery, but Justin Trudeau’s Liberals beat them in 2015 on a platform that included a promise to save it.
That quarter of Canadians who still get mail delivered to their door included voters in a lot of Liberal ridings, and the suburban swing ridings they need to remain in power.
Then there is the symbolism that flows from the first high-profile expenditure cutting announcement from Mr. Carney’s government: cutting a service to ordinary Canadians.
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The federal government doesn’t actually provide many direct services to the public, so leading off with the mail is a gift to public-sector unions and the moribund NDP, who hope to make the case that budget cuts mean cuts to services. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers called an immediate nationwide strike later in the day, so the Liberal government’s relations with labour just hit black ice.
Given all that, it’s fair to say the government made a courageous decision in allowing Canada Post to not only end home delivery but close rural post offices.
It’s hard to argue with Mr. Lightbound’s math, with the fact that Canada Post is delivering fewer letters to more people and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The institution, he said, is in “existential crisis” and must be saved with tough measures.
Perhaps that makes it a miniature example of Mr. Carney’s broader message that big things have to be done, and sacrifices made, to address the crisis that Canada is facing.
But the politics of cutting off home mail delivery won’t turn entirely on Mr. Lightbound’s numbers. An hour after he finished his press conference announcing the changes, Bloc Québécois MP Christine Normandin was in the Commons lecturing him on taking home delivery away from people who need it.
“There are seniors who need to receive their mail at home, notably outside the major centres,” she said. “There are people in handicap situations that are worried, too.”
Mr. Lightbound is right that that’s not most people any more. Many people won’t care about mail delivery in 2025. But some will – a lot. In a season when the Liberals will be telling Canadians that tough medicine is needed, they can’t afford to look like they don’t care about the sting of the needle.