Canada Post Lockout Sends Thousands Online

A few weeks ago when the postal strike was looming I wondered if a strike might be a tipping point that leads to even less mail being sent. 

A Globe and Mail article says that has indeed been the case. The article says, for example, that 350,000 ING Direct customers have switched online in the past 2 weeks. The impact of that?

“Canada Post will lose at least $2,352,000 a year in revenue from ING Direct on stamps alone, assuming the company sends each of those 350,000 people one letter a month at the commercial price of $0.56 a stamp.”

The longer term question is how much this will continue to accelerate the migration to online bill presentment now that the mail has started flowing again.

This is more evidence that affordable access to the internet is becoming more important and necessary for Canadian consumers and business. It’s no wonder that internet access is being considered a human right.