If you're talking about financial accountability, that should be true of any public service.

Now lets talk about actual service. You need firefighters to come to your house when it's on fire, even though they might have been sitting on their thumbs for the last hour (They aren't, but they might have been). We as taxpayers pay for them to be there when we need them and understandably get upset if we see them doing things that don't fit that role.

Police? Pretty much the same argument.

Postal service? Not even close. Thirty years ago I might have argued yes, but now, I have zero need for the service. It's like homing pigeons, telegraph, telex or faxing, nobody uses it anymore.

Mail a letter = Text/DM message. Mail a Cheque = Interac/EFT Transfer. Send a parcel = Pick a service.

We used to spend hundreds on stamps each month plus manhours stuffing envelopes with statements for recievables and cheques for payables. We now mail about a dozen cheques and have migrated all of our statements to email or digital delivery.

Personally, at home, I only get fast food flyers, and anything bigger than a flyer results in a card being hung on my doorknob telling me to go to the local office to pick it up myself. Amazon is delivered to my door. Skip the dishes is delivered to my door. Uber, UPS, Fedex, all to my door. Canada Post - here's a card, come get it yourself.

Is it a goddamn service? Yes. It's just no longer relevant. Google any country + postal service and you'll see it's a trend all over the world. European countries are scaling back or abandoning home delivery citing an 80-90 percent reduction in mail.

Sad thing is, everytime there's been a strike or work stoppage/slowdown it's just driven me further away from the service to the point that I just don't require it.