Reviving Canada Post: A Blueprint for Resurrecting Canada’s Economy

Introduction: The Amazon Returns Experience

A few weeks ago, I had to return an item I bought on Amazon. Recently, Amazon added a drop-off option at Staples stores—just show the QR code they provide, no packaging or postage required. Although it takes me a few minutes longer to drive to Staples than to the nearest Canada Post counter, I decided to give it a try… And five minutes later, I was walking out of the store, with the refund already processed. The whole process was smoother and faster than I expected.

Compare this to the Canada Post ordeal: hunting for parking, navigating a pharmacy’s labyrinth, waiting in an endless line, and paying for packaging. Staples just ate Canada Post’s lunch, and this isn’t just about a frustrating errand—it’s a microcosm of Canada’s broader economic malaise.

What has happened to Canada Post could be a grim foreshadowing for the nation’s broader economic prospects. But what if this struggling public service could become the testing ground for a complete economic resurrection?

1. The Broader Problem – Canada’s Productivity Woes

Canada has all the building blocks of a thriving economy: a well-educated workforce, abundant natural resources, and proximity to the largest economy in the world, the United States. Yet, Canada’s productivity growth has been lacklustre at best, with output per hour worked trailing other G7 nations.

The root of this stagnation lies in three key areas: bloated public spending, a risk-averse business culture, and a workforce that lacks ownership of the enterprises they support. For years, Canada has been propping up public sector jobs and funding state-run corporations, including Canada Post, while ignoring the structural changes that could drive Canadian private sector growth in today’s economic environment. Meanwhile, the bureaucratic burden—one of the highest among OECD countries—strangles innovation and leaves Canadian enterprises ill-equipped to compete on the global stage.

Canada Post isn’t just a postal service—it’s a perfect scale model of our national inefficiency. This once-essential service has become synonymous with inefficiency, in part due to its outdated business model and excessive reliance on government support. Its inability to capitalize on the e-commerce boom isn’t a coincidence; it’s a systemic failure waiting to be transformed.

The question is, can we use Canada Post as a testing ground for a broader economic transformation?

2. Canada Post as a Microcosm of a Dying Economy

Let’s dig deeper into the case of Canada Post. Once a staple of Canadian life, handling everything from birthday cards to crucial documents, Canada Post is now largely bypassed by modern consumers and businesses. The rise of e-commerce should have been its saving grace, offering new opportunities to serve the growing demand for package deliveries. Instead, Canada Post finds itself competing against logistics giants like FedEx, UPS, and even the very retailers it once served, like Amazon.

But instead of a very logical move to take the delivery business from Amazon, and kicking out of the market numerous small carriers on the way, CP prefers to cut down their services as their cost-cutting strategy. They stopped door delivery to millions of customers and are now considering to cut the delivery even to “communal mailboxes” from five to just two times a week.

This is happening because Canada Post’s problems in reality aren’t simply about competition—they’re about culture. Years of government support and direct subsidies have shielded the organization from the urgency of market competition, allowing inefficiency and complacency to take root. Union contracts and job security provisions make it nearly impossible to adapt quickly to changing conditions, while leadership often appears more concerned with political optics than with operational excellence.

In many ways, Canada Post’s struggles mirror those of the Canadian economy: overly reliant on financial or regulatory support, slow to innovate, and unwilling to take risks. But what if this state-run behemoth could be turned around? What if, instead of downsizing or privatizing it, we could use it as a laboratory for innovative economic reforms?

3. The Path Forward: EOT, Rebalancing, and De-Bureaucratization

Revitalizing Canada Post requires more than just a few new delivery vans or digital tools. It requires a paradigm shift—a move towards Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs), embracing the principles of “rebalancing society” as proposed by Henry Mintzberg, and a willingness to drastically reduce the bloated bureaucracy both at Canada Post and across the public sector.

Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) – Aligning Interests and Driving Efficiency. In simple terms, an EOT means employees own a significant share of the company they work for, aligning their interests with the company’s success. This model has already seen positive results in other markets like the U.K., where employee-owned businesses are more resilient and productive compared to their traditionally structured peers. Imagine a Canada Post where every postal worker and delivery driver has a stake in the company’s performance. It’s not just about profit-sharing—it’s about creating a culture where employees feel they have a say in the company’s future. And not just that; they feel the importance of their service and perceive their effort as meaningful. And if not, they have to find their meaning elsewhere because their attitude will be rejected by the more engaged majority.

The current structure of Canada Post is a legacy of public service ideals mixed with the inefficiencies of a state-run monopoly. Introducing an EOT structure would shift the focus back to performance, allowing for flexible operations and reducing the need for rigid union demands. With a direct financial stake in outcomes, workers would be more inclined to adopt process improvements, ensure on-time deliveries, and support new business ventures, such as digital identity services or regional e-commerce fulfillment centers.

For the broader economy, this model could become a template for other crown corporations and even some private firms. Employee ownership can break the cycle of wage stagnation, reduce income inequality, and foster a more engaged workforce, all of which are key to revitalizing Canada’s productivity.

Rebalancing Society – Strengthening the Plural Sector. Henry Mintzberg’s call for rebalancing society emphasizes the need for a healthier relationship between the public, private, and plural sectors. Canada’s private sector dominance has often come at the expense of social and community interests, while the public sector has grown unwieldy and unfocused.

Mintzberg’s concept of the Plural Sector, encompassing cooperatives, nonprofits, and community-focused enterprises, builds on Peter Drucker’s knowledge society concept. While Drucker focused on knowledge’s transformative impact on the economy and organizations, Mintzberg is concerned with the balance of power and influence in society. In response to Drucker’s predicted developments, Mintzberg sees certain organizations as crucial for societal balance.

Mintzberg’s “rebalancing society” concept offers a philosophical basis for this radical approach and makes total sense in our evolved society. But while his idea has been around for over a decade, it’s remained largely theoretical—people don’t rally behind abstract concepts of balance, but driven by evolutionary psychology they follow tangible benefits. By creating this hybrid model—part cooperative, part public service—we could finally give Mintzberg’s theory some muscle. Imagine Canada Post as a community-oriented hub offering digital access points for rural communities, logistics solutions for small businesses, community banking, and secure electoral networks. Now that’s the kind of rebalancing people can get behind.

A rebalanced approach could transform Canada Post into a hybrid model, such as an employee-owned cooperative, a B-Corp, or Benefit Corporation, a nonprofit organization prioritizing social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. This model would boost employee engagement, revitalize the old crown corporation culture, and foster agility and innovation. By doing so, Canada Post could win back business from new entrants and thrive in today’s knowledge economy, where flexibility and innovation are essential.

This transformation wouldn’t just save a struggling institution; it could turn Canada Post into a community-oriented hub offering more than just package deliveries. Envision a postal network that doubles as a digital access point for rural communities, supports small businesses with logistics solutions, and provides community banking in underserved areas. This would be a win for the plural sector and demonstrate that public services can innovate without bureaucratic hindrances.

For Canada as a whole, rebalancing means prioritizing policies that encourage cooperatives and community ownership. By diversifying beyond pure capitalism and state control, Canada could become a global leader in sustainable economic models, attracting socially conscious businesses and investors. Implementing this in an organization like Canada Post will send a powerful signal to other organizations that have relied on institutional support for too long, encouraging them to rediscover their entrepreneurial spirit.

De-Bureaucratization – Cutting the Dead Weight. Canada’s public sector has grown significantly over the past decade, with bureaucratic inefficiencies permeating every aspect of the economy, from immigration to corporate regulation, and negatively impacting national culture. Canada Post has not been immune, with excessive management layers and cumbersome processes hindering adaptability to market shifts.

Consider this: While Canada Post’s ‘leaders’ continued to lament about dwindling letter mail volumes and the parcel market being poached by smaller carriers, the corporation’s headcount has remained largely unchanged since 2006. This is despite technological advancements replacing human labour and the questionable divestiture of its logistics and IT assets.

A drastic reduction in bureaucracy is necessary, involving the elimination of redundant roles and a flattened management structure. Frontline workers should be granted more autonomy to make real-time decisions, enhancing service delivery. Instead of micromanaging from Ottawa, leadership should set ambitious targets, empowering employees to find innovative solutions.

De-bureaucratization at Canada Post would serve as a proof-of-concept for broader economic reforms. Canada needs to adopt a similar approach in industries like healthcare and education, where bureaucratic expansion has diverted resources from core functions. This has fostered a generation (or two) of employees ill-equipped to survive and thrive in the knowledge economy.

4. IP as a Driver of the Knowledge Economy

Canada’s future economic success relies heavily on leveraging intellectual property (IP) to establish a strong presence in the global knowledge economy. This means shifting focus away from traditional industries like oil and lumber extraction.

Modernizing Canada Post’s Core Services. To drive this change, modernizing Canada Post’s core services is essential. By transforming into a key logistics player in the digital economy, Canada Post can offer specialized services like secure digital identification, authentication, and digital access points for underserved communities, services that could be essential for e-commerce and remote work. Achieving this requires a mandate to innovate, not just survive, and targeted R&D funding for modernization efforts, including AI-driven logistics and data analytics. This could turn Canada Post into a leader in the logistics of the future, a valuable asset in a digital-first economy.

State-Level Focus on IP. Canada should prioritize becoming a global leader in IP protection, research commercialization, and digital infrastructure. This can be achieved through policies like tax credits for R&D, streamlined patent processes, and incentives for university-private sector partnerships. By focusing on IP creation and commercialization, Canada can attract global talent and investment, driving economic growth and prosperity.

5. A More Equal Society, Stronger Middle Class, and Less Need for Unions

Canada Post’s transformation through EOTs, rebalancing priorities, and innovation would serve as a model for reducing income inequality and empowering the Canadian middle class. By giving employees a direct stake in the enterprise’s success, the divide between management and labour would narrow. The focus would shift from protecting entitlements through unions to fostering shared success.

In this model, unions might become less prominent, not because workers no longer need representation, but because their interests would be aligned with those of their company. This shift away from adversarial labour-management relations would be a practical outcome of rebalancing, allowing Canada Post and similar institutions to innovate more freely.

6. Rethinking Immigration for a Knowledge-Driven Canada

Canada’s current immigration system, bogged down in bureaucracy and often prioritizing low-wage labour, is another area ripe for reform. Canada Post could be a proving ground for a new, more targeted immigration strategy that focuses on attracting the brightest minds from around the world. This would involve reducing bureaucratic hurdles for high-skilled immigrants while enforcing a stricter point system to ensure that new arrivals are equipped to thrive in a knowledge-driven economy.

With an influx of skilled workers, Canada Post could become a center of technological innovation. It could partner with tech startups for last-mile delivery solutions, build logistics hubs powered by AI and data analytics, and offer specialized services to support the digital economy. This, in turn, could help rejuvenate rural and smaller communities, making them attractive to new talent and revitalizing regions that have been left behind by economic stagnation. points-based system for economic immigration.

Canada Post’s hiring practices reflect a broader trend in Canadian policies, prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and political correctness over business needs. Rather than focusing on essential skills like customer service, CP’s hiring policy often emphasizes ideological alignment. This approach neglects the true company’s purpose and actual requirements.

The consequences are evident. With a participation rate of less than 50% in the CP engagement survey, the claimed “stable engagement score of 70” seems misleading. My assessment based on available data (CP Annual reports, LinkedIn and GlassDoor) suggests that the employee engagement level at CP is in the lowest quartile and thus leaves a lot of room for improvement (at least 50% in productivity). This disparity suggests a disconnect between CP’s self-assessment and the reality experienced by its employees.

This phenomenon is not unique to Canada Post corporation. Many Canadian policies, including immigration, prioritize political correctness over practicality. For example, the official points-based immigration channel can be slow and inefficient, while claiming asylum can provide immediate entry, despite uncertain long-term prospects. This unfair and inefficient policy has led to uneven access and inconsistent outcomes.

The scope of this problem at the national level is beyond the goals of this article. Returning to the corporate level, it’s clear that Canada Post’s hiring practices and Canadian policies often prioritize ideology over pragmatism, neglecting the needs of businesses and employees. This approach may seem appealing to ‘leaders’ – but it frequently fails to deliver the promised benefits.

7. Canada Post as a Pilot for Broader National Reforms

I am certain that Canada Post can transform itself from a lumbering, inefficient relic into a vibrant, innovative enterprise. So why can’t Canada do the same? Using Canada Post as a pilot project would allow the country to test these economic reforms on a smaller scale, with less risk. If successful, it would create a model that could be applied across other government-run enterprises and sectors.

The potential outcomes of this transformation are promising:

– Improved Performance and Efficiency: Shared ownership and a focus on innovation can make Canada Post a competitive player in logistics and e-commerce, leading to better service delivery times, cost cuts, and expansion into new business areas.

– Reduced Income Inequality and Strengthened Middle Class: The shift toward employee ownership would ensure a more equitable distribution of profits, helping to rebuild a middle class that has been hollowed out over decades.

– Natural Decline of Union Influence: As workers benefit directly from company success, the traditional role of unions in advocating for pay and job security would diminish, replaced by a culture of shared responsibility.

– A Smarter Approach to Immigration: Targeting skilled workers who can contribute to the knowledge economy, Canada can become a destination for the world’s best and brightest, ensuring that talent and innovation drive future growth.

This transformation can have far-reaching benefits for Canada Post, its employees, and the country as a whole.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

The time for half-measures and incremental adjustments is over. Canada’s economic woes won’t be fixed by another round of government handouts or superficial “efficiency studies.” We need bold ideas, real structural change, and the courage to disrupt entrenched interests—whether they reside in corner offices, union halls, or the corridors of parliament.

Canada Post is a perfect microcosm of our national challenges, and if we can turn it around, we’ll have a blueprint for reviving the Canadian economy. Implementing EOTs, embracing rebalancing principles, and cutting through the thicket of bureaucratic red tape are the keys to a stronger, more innovative Canada. This is especially timely, as our southern neighbor prepares for significant changes with Project 2025. This shift presents both international risks and opportunities for Canada to lead in the knowledge economy by attracting top talent.

Rather than lamenting the decline of Canada Post, we should leverage it as a testing ground for innovative ideas that can propel our economy forward. If successful, we may discover that the principles saving Canada Post can also revitalize a country that has been stagnant for too long.

Let’s make Canada Post the symbol of a new era in Canadian productivity—a symbol that, with the right reforms, this country can be so much more than the sum of its parts. For Canada’s economy to thrive again, it’s time to deliver change, one bold step, one bold company at a time.