Purolator Inc.

This article is about the Canadian courier. For its former parent, the American automotive filter manufacturer, see Purolator Filters.

Purolator Inc. is a Canadian courier majority owned by Canada Post. It was founded as Trans Canada Couriers, Ltd and acquired in 1967 by Purolator, a US manufacturer of oil and air filters.^[3] In 1987, the company returned to Canadian ownership. Although it retained the Purolator name, it has had no connection with the oil filter business since that time.

Purolator Inc.

Formerly	Trans Canada Couriers, Ltd.
Company type	Joint Venture
Industry	Courier
Founded	5 December 1960; 64 years ago (1960-12-05) in Eastern Canada
Headquarters	Mississauga, Ontario , Canada
Number of locations	176 operations facilities 104 Shipping Centres  (2021)
Key people	John Ferguson (President and CEO)
Products	Parcel delivery Logistics
Revenue	CA$2.2 billion (2020)
Owner	Canada Post (91%) Rainmaker Investments Inc. (7%) Others (2%)
Number of employees	13,000+ (2020)
Subsidiaries	Purolator International
Website	purolator.com
Footnotes / references [1][2]

History

Purolator Freight truck

Purolator began in the 1960s, initially called Trans Canada Couriers, Ltd. with two employees as a subsidiary of American Courier Corporation. In 1967, ACC was bought out by Purolator Filters, who made automotive oil filtration systems (hence the name "Pure-oil-later" = "Pur-o-lator").^[4] By 1970, it operated 84 vehicles.^[5] The courier company was later renamed Purolator. In 1987, it was sold by Purolator Filters to Canadian owners but retained the Purolator name.

In 1987 Purolator partnered with DHL's predecessor (Airborne Express) to better serve the American market which continued until 2008. In 1993, Canada Post became the majority shareholder and now owns 91% of the business with 7% owned by Rainmaker Investments Ltd. and 2% by others.^[1] Purolator opened its first fully automated sortation hub in Ontario in 2022.^[6]

Operations

Purolator delivered over 25 million packages in 2018^[7] and in 2019 operated 170 terminals in Canada and an additional 30 in the US.^[8]

Purolator partners with UPS for deliveries outside Canada.

Cargojet operates Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 aircraft for Purolator.

As of April 29, 2024 had over 5,000 reviews at Trusted Reviews with an average review of 1.1 out of five.^[9]

Unicell Quicksider

A Purolator hybrid electric vehicle

On September 24, 2007, Purolator Inc. introduced the Unicell Quicksider, a prototype full-electric, lightweight urban delivery vehicle, developed by a consortium led by Toronto-based Unicell Limited with ArvinMeritor, Electrovaya, the Transportation Development Centre of Transport Canada, and others.^[10][11]