Canada Post wants to hike domestic postage rates next year to 90 cents, blaming a steep slide in letter volumes.

The crown corporation is formally posting a notice this week that it will raise the price of domestic stamps from 85 cents to 90 cents on Jan. 11, 2016.

Stamps to the United States would increase from $1.20 to $1.25, and stamps for other countries would go from $2.50 to $2.60.

“We need to do everything we can to secure the future of the business,” said Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton. “We saw in 2015 some of the steepest declines in mail volumes.”

He said mail volumes dropped 8.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same period a year earlier.

In 2014, Canada Post says it only handled 3.6 billion letters, down from 5 billion in 2006.

As part of sweeping reforms, Canada Post hiked the price of stamps from 63 cents to 85 cents on March 31, 2014, and introduced a new policy where purchasing a single stamp costs $1.

Hamilton said individual stamps would remain at $1 next year, but advised people that they can buy permanent stamps in booklet form now for use next year.

However, Canada Post estimates the average Canadian household buys fewer than two stamps a month, while the typical small business purchases fewer than 250 stamps per year.

Even though mail volumes continue to fall, Canada Post says its cost of doing business continues to rise as more addresses are added.

The post office is also phasing out door-to-door home delivery and switch residents to community mailboxes. Some towns and cities have already been switched over, but some of Toronto’s dense neighbourhoods will be among the last to change.

And some downtown areas will get to keep delivery at the door because it is impractical to switch to community mailboxes.

Bitter battles have been wages in some communities that included a court battle in Hamilton, which tried to restrict locations for the boxes. Canada Post won and expects to begin the switchover in Hamilton later this month.

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