On 10 October 1908, the first free rural mail delivery service was instituted in Canada. Prior to rural mail delivery, many Canadians living outside major cities and towns had little communication with the outside world. The new service traded under the name The Royal Mail Canada. The Canadian post office was designed around the British service as created by Rowland Hill, who introduced the concept of charging mail by weight and not destination along with creating the concept of the postage stamp. The Act took effect on April 1, 1868, providing uniform postal service throughout the newly established dominion. It was not until 1867 when the newly formed Canada created the Post Office Department as a federal government department (The Act for the Regulation of the Postal Service) headed by a Cabinet minister, the Postmaster General of Canada. The first postage stamp (designed by Sandford Fleming) went into circulation in Canada that same year. Official postal services began in 1775, under the control of the British Government up to 1851. Mail delivery within Canada first started in 1693 when the Portuguese-born Pedro da Silva was paid to deliver between Québec City and Montréal. John's, John Rut wrote a letter to King Henry VIII about his findings and planned voyage. John's, Newfoundland, the first known letter was sent from present day Canada. See also: Postage stamps and postal history of Canada Although English-language advertising also still referred to the corporation as "Canada Post". During the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, the short forms used in the corporation's logo were "Mail" (English) and "Poste" (French), rendered as "Poste Mail" in Québec and "Mail Poste" in the other provinces. The legal name is Canada Post Corporation in English and Société canadienne des postes in French. In 2007, Epost was absorbed into Canada Post.Ĭanada Post (French: Postes Canada) is the Federal Identity Program name. In 2000, Canada Post created a company called Epost, allowed customers to receive their bill online for free. The Corporation holds an interest in Purolator Courier, Innovapost, Progistix-Solutions and Canada Post International Limited.
It employs approximately 64,000 full and part-time employees. Ĭanada Post operates as a group of companies called The Canada Post Group. As of 2004, nearly 843,000 rural Canadian customers received residential mail delivery services. In terms of area serviced, Canada Post delivers to a larger area than the postal service of any other nation, including Russia (where service in Siberia is limited largely to communities along the railway). There are more than 6,200 post offices across the country, a combination of corporate offices and private franchises that are operated by retailers, such as drugstores. Delivery takes place via traditional "to the door" service and centralized delivery by 25,000 letter carriers, through a 13,000 vehicle fleet. Ĭanada Post provided service to more than 16 million addresses and delivered nearly 8.4 billion items in 2016 and consolidated revenue from operations reached $7.88 billion. The act aimed to set a new direction for the postal service by ensuring the postal service's financial security and independence. This abolished the Post Office Department and created the present-day Crown corporation which provides postal service. On October 16, 1981, the Canada Post Corporation Act came into effect. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the operating name of the Post Office Department of the Canadian government founded in 1867, French: Courrier Royal Canada), rebranding was done to the "Canada Post" name in the late 1960s, even though it had not yet been separated from the government. Canada Post Corporation ( French: Société canadienne des postes), trading as Canada Post ( French: Postes Canada), is a Crown corporation which functions as the primary postal operator in Canada.