Canada Post along with its affiliated companies including Purolator Courier recorded a $58 million loss, before taxes, in 2013, or a net loss of $29 million.

The loss was blamed on a continued drop in demand for ordinary mail like bills, statements and actual letters, where the Canada Post segment – which includes the mail and parcel business — lost $269 million last year.

The losses were stemmed in part by a $164 million in gains from the sale of real estate assets including a mail processing plant in Vancouver, shrinking the loss to $125 million, before tax.

Domestic letter mail volumes fell to 3.8 billion items, down from a little more than 4 billion in 2012, and 5 billion in 2006.

“Mail is going to continue to decline,” said Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton in an interview. “Canadians are choosing convenience, in terms of paying bills, in terms of receiving statements, of getting them online.”

But Hamilton said people are also chasing convenience when it comes to online shopping, which benefits Canada Post because it is moving more parcels. That part of the business was up by 5 million more pieces, generating a revenue increase of 7.2 per cent.

But growth in the parcel business, which accounted for $1.4 billion in revenues in 2013, is not enough to make up for shortfall in letter mail, which represented nearly $3 billion in revenues, about half of total revenues for the post office.

During the peak holiday season, Canada Post had 10 different days in which more than one million parcels were delivered.

Canadians are receiving 30 per cent fewer letters, but 17,000 new addresses are still being added each year.

“That is not sustainable. More and more people are being added to a system that people are using less,” Hamilton said.

Canada Post has begun implementing its five-point plan to make the business more sustainable including hiking domestic stamps to 85 cents each, if purchased in a booklet, up from 63 cents or $1 if a stamp is purchased individually.

As well, it will eliminate door-to-door home delivery, switching instead to community mail boxes that were first introduced in new subdivisions in the 1980s, a move that will bring in significant labour cost-savings.

The post office is moving first with the switch to community boxes in suburban neighbourhoods including Oakville this fall. Dense areas in big cities will be among the last to make the change during the five-year plan.

Canada Post also plans to eliminate up to 8,000 jobs, mostly through attrition, and turn to franchises instead of postal outlets to save costs.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says Canada Post needs to come up with new innovations such as postal banking, in the wake of its latest annual report.

“Our postal system is a valuable public service available to all who live in this country and that’s how it should stay,” said national president Denis Lemelin in a news release. “We need to believe in its future and help it grow, not kill another public service with cutbacks that will drive customers away.”

In 2012, the Canada Post Group of Companies reported a before-tax profit of $127 million in 2012, and the Canada Post segment reported a $98 million profit before tax, attributed to changes to a labour contract.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

However, in the latest annual report released Monday, Canada Post said it has adopted International Financial Reporting Standards in 2013, so it has restated its 2012 numbers.

Under the new accounting measure, Canada Post’s overall losses were $110 million, before tax, in 2012, and a net loss of $83 million.

Read more about: