The program, first launched in 1999, was intended to be a historic way to share electronic documents, but was overtaken, mainly by Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Canada Post said in 2010 that it would be a revenue source to help boost declining revenue in door-to-door delivered letter mail.
“It does not matter which way you look at it, the letter business is a declining business,” Moya Green, then-CEO of Canada Post, testified during hearings of the Senate national finance committee in 2010.
“In a declining business you have to do other things,” she said. “You must also grow the business. If you do not grow the business in a new direction the business will die.”
Competition in the market was fierce. Apple launched a Mail app in 2003, and Google launched Gmail in 2004. Microsoft began the Hotmail email service in 1996, which ultimately became Outlook in 2012. Presently, all sorts of companies offer file-sharing services and email delivery, including Google Drive, Microsoft One Drive, Dropbox, and iCloud, among others.
In an FAQ document no longer accessible on their website, Canadian Post said mailers (like bill companies) would be leaving the service on their own schedule and the last delivery would take place in September 2022. Customers who wanted to save mail had to download one document at a time, or print each document separately, by December 2022. An exact date was not provided.
Declining Revenues
The Crown corporation did not provide any details on the programs’ cost or revenues. All accounts were closed Dec. 31, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.“After careful assessment and consideration, Canada Post has decided to wind down its epost service at the end of 2022,” said the Crown corporation, owned by the federal government, in the FAQ.
“Since epost launched in 2000, the way businesses connect and communicate with their customers has evolved significantly, and other companies are now better suited to meet Canadians’ changing needs,” said Canada Post.
Canada Post recorded a loss before tax of $129 million in the first quarter of 2022. The loss before tax increased by $52 million, or 67.7 percent, compared to the same period in 2021, largely attributed to slower parcel delivery sales.
Competition
A complicated multi-step process was needed by users if they wanted to retrieve documents. In 2004, then-chief financial officer of Canada Post Jacques Côté said it was being worked on.During a House of Commons hearing that year, he said: “There is no doubt in my mind that one day down the road people are going to receive their mail electronically. It makes sense. It’s faster, cheaper, and so on. But the building of the market, the density in the mailbox, and value-added services at the mailbox that make it worth your while to go there every week to see if you’ve got mail are going to take a little time.”
“Canada Post or somebody else will find a solution,” said Côté. “We believe we’ve got the right model. It takes a while but eventually it is going to go up. We still think that’s a winning business model. We’re still committed to it.”
MPs questioned the value of the program. During a 2003 hearing of the government operations committee, a Canadian Alliance Party MP at the time, Ken Epp from Alberta, said, “You’ve gotten into email and my question is why? Every provider of internet services has email accounts. I’ve never needed Canada Post in order to send and receive email.”
Then-Liberal MP Alex Shepherd, of Ontario, was also critical of the program. “Nobody wants to be part of it,” he said.
