Growing up, it wasn’t unusual to see the mailman walking down the street in his blue uniform, the Canadian Coat of Arms weaved into a dark satchel slung over his shoulder.
Sometimes he’d hop on a bus for free, but most days he went door to door. He delivered birthday cards from grandma, chess moves from grandpa, wedding announcements, bills and even the occasional handwritten note from a friend.
No matter the weather, he was out making his rounds. Small grey boxes along the route held more letters, waiting to be picked up. Once, I even spotted a carrier sitting inside one of those boxes, resting before heading back out to finish his shift.
Today, carriers drive vans, jogging from block to block before jumping back into their vehicles to race to the next street. The personal connection is gone, and so is much of the romance.
This raises the question: Is there still a need for mail carriers?
The issue became more pressing last December during a postal strike — a time when Canadians rely on the mail more than ever to send Christmas greetings. Small businesses and realtors, among other professionals, still depend on Canada Post to reach their clients affordably. Personally, I prefer paper bills to digital ones because they help me track my payments. So yes, there’s still a case to be made for keeping the service.
But the standoff between the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canada Post remains. Carriers argue they’re underpaid, while the Crown corporation says it can’t afford wage increases. CUPW’s proposals — scrapping overtime and halting flyer delivery — are framed as solutions, though critics question whether those measures truly serve workers.
Meanwhile, Canada Post has been cutting back. The decision to close postal outlets in many drug stores has made sending parcels or even checking postage more inconvenient. For many Canadians, those counters were the most accessible part of the service.
If carriers strike again, will the gains outweigh the costs? A five per cent wage increase looks good on paper, but factoring in lost wages on the picket line, it could take months to break even. Strike pay rarely covers mortgages or utility bills.
The bigger question is whether this is about protecting essential services or about redefining what jobs like mail delivery should pay in today’s economy. Unions frame it as a fight for a living wage. Yet minimum wage jobs were never designed to be career paths. And when the floor rises, so do costs for businesses, which are ultimately passed on to consumers.
So where does that leave us? Do we still consider mail delivery an essential service? Should CUPW keep pushing its members onto picket lines? How high do we want the minimum wage to climb?
The debate isn’t going away. But in the end, Canadians — as both taxpayers and customers — will decide how much they value the daily visit from a mail carrier.
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