Ottawa’s budget bill proposes to end free postage for people who are blind

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals’ budget bill currently making its way through Parliament contains a small amendment to Canada Post’s legislation that could spell the end of a critical service providing accessible reading material for people who are blind.

Deep in the Liberals’ Bill C-15, the budget implementation act, are clauses mentioning the repeal of a few sections of the Canada Post Corporation Act without further explanation of what’s covered by those parts of the legislation.

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Those sections of the act are what allow Canadians and organizations to send and receive — without paying any postage — books, letters and other materials used by people who are blind.

These few lines of legislation are what let Laurie Davidson do a crucial part of her work.

She’s the executive director of the Centre for Equitable Library Access, a non-profit that provides accessible reading material such as physical books in braille and audiobooks to people who are blind, low-vision or have other disabilities that make reading difficult.

“It’s alarming to me that the government has decided to put this in — I might even say intentionally obscure it — so that nobody will notice it in the hopes of pushing it through,” Davidson said.

Davidson said her organization — just one of a handful in Canada that offer similar services — ships around 6,500 accessible books and 500 audiobook players to clients across the country each year.

That includes physical books embossed with braille over text, an accessible option that allows parents and children who are blind to read together.

Paying for postage on all of those shipments would cost the Centre for Equitable Library Access between $500,000 to $1 million a year, Davidson estimates.

“The cost would be prohibitive,” she said. “We would have to stop that service.”

The CNIB estimates 1.5 million people in Canada live with some form of vision loss.

Davidson said the free postage on accessible materials can be a lifeline for clients who live in remote areas and do not have ready access to a local library or digital alternatives.

“For all of these people, this would be a loss of format choice that would significantly impact their ability to equitably participate in Canadian society,” she said.

The CNIB said in a statement that it was still reviewing the proposed changes for possible impacts on Canadians who are blind or have low vision and was not yet in a position to comment.

The Canadian Press reached out to the offices of Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Joël Lightbound, the minister responsible for Canada Post, but has not received comment on the proposed changes.

Canada Post spokeswoman Lisa Liu said in an email to The Canadian Press that the Crown corporation is “aware of the proposed changes in Bill C-15 and will not be providing further comment.”

Facing mounting financial losses in recent years, Canada Post is readying for major overhauls to keep its operations viable. That includes a turnaround plan submitted to Lightbound last month, but details of the proposal have not been made public while his office is reviewing it.

While the cost of paying for postage can be exorbitant for a non-profit, Davidson said the scale of the program for Canada Post itself would be a “drop in the bucket.”

“Cutting this program or not is not going to make Canada Post solvent,” she said.

Providing free postage for people who are blind has been a part of the Canada Post Corporation Act since its inception in 1981, Davidson said, but she believes the practice itself may predate the legislation.

It’s also a tenet of the Universal Postal Convention, a United Nations-led pact that Canada has signed.

Davidson said it’s “mind-boggling” that Canada would seemingly step away from a commitment like this through a couple of lines buried in the budget implementation act.

“Canada has signed on to a convention which says that this should be part of their law, and they have it in their law,” she said.

“The idea that they now have a clause in here that says that it will be repealed, I think is unconscionable for Canada, for a country that supports human rights and equitable access.”

Bill C-15 is in its first reading in the House of Commons, meaning it has a number of hurdles to pass in the current minority parliament until it is enacted in law.

The Centre for Equitable Library Access is convening other organizations with stakes in the changing legislation this week in hopes of pushing members of Parliament to make amendments to C-15 that will stop the change from passing into law with the broader budget legislation.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 8, 2025.

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press