Canada Post reported a loss before taxes of 841 million dollars for the full year 2024. That’s roughly 70 million per month.
Canada’s Prime Minister is right when he says that the country cannot support such losses ad infinitum. Obviously, therefore, a method, other than selling stamps, must be found to pay for comprehensive, but affordable, national Postal Service.
The history of postal systems, a mail or courier service to pass messages from one person in one place to another person in another place, starts with the invention of writing and may well have been one of the reasons writing was invented.
Before adhesive paper stamps came along, letters were hand-stamped or postmarked with ink. Postmarks were invented by Henry Bishop and were at first called “Bishop mark.” Bishop marks were first used in 1661 at the London General Post Office. They marked the day and month the letter was mailed.
A schoolmaster from England, Sir Rowland Hill, invented the adhesive postage stamp in 1837, an act for which he was knighted.
Hill had received a summons to provide evidence before the Commission for Post Office Enquiry in February 1837. In providing his evidence he read from the letter he had written to the Chancellor that included the statement that “a system of paid postage could be created by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp and covered at the back with a glutinous wash…”.
Through Hill’s efforts, the first stamp in the world was issued in England in 1840. On May 6, 1840, the British Penny Black stamp was released. The Penny Black featured the profile of Queen Victoria’s head, who remained on all British stamps for the next 60 years.
Rowland Hill also created the first uniform postage rates that were based on weight rather than size which made the prepayment of mail postage using Hill’s stamps widely and easily possible and practical.
Hill’s invention – the STAMP – changed fundamentally the practical way people could communicate easily even though being at great distances from each other.
The system worked and was adapted by Post Offices world-wide.
Stamps are most commonly made from paper designed specifically for them and are printed in sheets, rolls or small booklets. Less commonly, postage stamps are made of materials other than paper, such as embossed foil.
In addition to the most common rectangular shape, stamps have been printed in geometric (circular, triangular and pentagonal) and irregular shapes. The United States issued its first circular stamp in 2000 as a hologram of the earth. Sierra Leone and Tonga have issued stamps in the shapes of fruit.
(I am indebted to Mary Bellis of Thoughts Co for information on the history of stamps.)
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Canada Post, like most governmental Postal Services around the world, derived (until recently) the largest part of its income from the sale of stamps and, thus, was able to balance the books until 2018 because stamps were widely in demand. Then, an extended strike coupled with the fallout from the COVID Pandemic exacerbated the already weakening financial position of Canada Post: in 2006 it had delivered 5.5 billion letters, by 2024 the figure had dropped to 2 Billion. People were writing less letters and used computers, iPhones and email to communicate.
The Internet had largely replaced the adhesive postage stamp.
It appears that a business model based on generating income overwhelmingly from the sale of stamps is no longer realistic. At least not for delivering the nation’s mail.
Unfortunately, outdated regulatory and policy constraints, as-well as governmental neglect, are limiting Canada Post’s ability to adapt to the changing needs of the country.
