Canada Post’s Bonus Cheques Need a Public Ledger Before Another Rescue

Losses for the public, bonus cheques for management and taxpayer-backed cash injections are not a sustainability plan.

Canada Post’s numbers now read like a warning label for every Crown corporation asking taxpayers for patience. Blacklock’s reported July 13 that managers received nearly $31 million in bonuses even as CEO Doug Ettinger had told Parliament the organization was “on the brink.” Juno separately reported Canada Post disclosed more than $30.8 million in bonuses to 2,377 management employees in 2025, while still not clarifying how much went to 417 executive-level employees.

Those bonus figures matter because Canada Post’s own financial release says the corporation posted a $1.57 billion loss before tax in 2025 — its largest on record and $728 million worse than 2024. The same release says Canada Post received $1.034 billion in repayable government funding in 2025, then had approval in early 2026 for up to another $1.008 billion in additional repayable funding.

Call it repayable funding, bridge financing or a rescue; the public still carries the risk. When a Crown corporation loses $1.57 billion, needs taxpayer-backed cash, and still hands out management performance pay, Canadians deserve more than a carefully worded answer to Parliament. They deserve the ledger.

This is not an argument that every manager is lazy or undeserving. It is an argument that public-sector incentive pay has to survive public scrutiny, especially inside a monopoly-era institution struggling to compete in a parcel market it no longer controls. Canada Post says labour uncertainty, falling parcel volumes, old rules and modernization delays helped drive the loss. Fine. Then show how bonuses were tied to fixing those problems, not simply paid while they got worse.

The Liberal government should not treat Crown corporations as accountability-free zones. If Ottawa is willing to backstop Canada Post while families face rising bills and small businesses pay higher costs, ministers should insist on the same transparency they would demand from any private contractor taking public money.

Before another dollar moves, publish the recipients by band, the executive total, the scorecards, the board minutes and the clawback policy. If the bonuses were earned, the evidence should defend them. If the evidence cannot defend them, taxpayers should not be asked to quietly underwrite the next cheque.