The U.K., Belgium and Germany have done it. Should Canada also privatize its postal service?

The solution to Canada Post's financial woes and murky future, according to one observer, is just two words: Sell it.

"I'm not sure you can do any tweaks," said Vincent Geloso, an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. 

"The best you can do is make them suck not as bad. That's essentially it. There's no way around that," Geloso, who is also a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, told CBC News. 

"It's better if we just go down the route of selling it off."

Canada Post's recent labour strife has renewed focus on what changes might have to be made to adapt to the future. Suggestions have included less frequent mail delivery, limiting home delivery and beefing up its parcel mail business.

But some argue more drastic action is needed, such as selling off or privatizing the Crown corporation.

Even before the month-long strike by more than 55,000 postal workers, the national mail service had been under the spotlight for its grim financial situation. Back in May, Canada Post said it could run out of operating funds in less than a year.

Yet taxpayers are not on the hook for its losses; Canada Post is funded by the sale of postal products and services. Still, it has been losing money since 2018. In the last six years, its losses have totalled $3 billion, including $748 million in 2023.

The corporation has blamed this on declining revenue from delivery of letters and parcels, despite an increase in the volume of package deliveries. Meanwhile, the cost of delivering mail and parcels is increasing.

Canada Post has also struggled to compete with more privately owned delivery companies.

Any other company — facing such losses and declining demand — would be forced to innovate and reduce costs, or would otherwise be bought out or go bankrupt, Geloso said in a recent article in The Globe and Mail.

Because of its monopoly over most of the letter market, Canada Post "lacks this incentive," he wrote, and can "simply pass the burden onto consumers by raising prices." 

Instead, he says that the federal government should look to how some European countries have adapted their postal services.

For example, the European Commission, which is responsible for proposing and monitoring new EU laws and policies, said in 2013 that the delivery of all letters, regardless of weight, was open to competition. (In Canada, only Canada Post can deliver letters.)