Canada Post cancels community mailbox expansion

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This article was published 23/01/2018 (2530 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The federal government will stop converting home postal delivery to community mailboxes, but won’t restore door-to-door service removed under the previous Conservative government, it announced Wednesday.

Canada Post’s decision to quit its controversial community mailbox expansion program and ask seniors and disabled activists how they want mail delivered got a lukewarm reception Wednesday in Winnipeg.

A local activist Canada Post consulted with in 2013, Carlos Sosa, said it’s good news the Crown agency won’t set up more of the neighbourhood mailboxes. However, the 36-year-old put little faith in government promises a new national advisory body will seek options for Canadians with accessibility issues.

“Back in 2013, with the original announcement, I did meet with Canada Post. It felt more like a public-relations exercise rather than meaningful consultation, so I’m sceptical about this — that it’s another public-relations exercise,” he said.

Canada Post announced Wednesday it will create an advisory panel to gather information and seek opinions for serving people with accessibility issues who have been switched to community mailboxes already — an issue Sosa said he still hears complaints about.

However, the Crown corporation won’t bring back full door-to-door delivery for the estimated 840,000 families coast to coast who have already started walking down the street to collect their mail since the conversion was rolled out in 2014.

“We’re not going to put the toothpaste back in the tube,” Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough told a news conference Wednesday at a Canada Post sorting plant in Mississauga, Ont.

In Winnipeg, 13,000 addresses in the Maples, West Kildonan, Garden City and Margaret Park neighbourhoods were the first to be slated for community mailboxes. Another 11,000 in northwest Winnipeg were later targeted for the conversion as part of a strategy to end door-to-door mail delivery to as many as five million addresses.

The plan ran into a massive backlash from the public and union workers and was put on hold. It’s too late to roll it back now, Ottawa said.

“We’re not going to reverse these decisions that were made by the former government, but we are going to guarantee exceptional services to Canadians,” said Qualtrough, the federal minister responsible for Canada Post.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers gave the decision a mixed reaction.

“We are disappointed about the prime minister breaking his promise to restore door-to-door, and we’re pleased about the four million door-to-door addresses that have been saved and will not be converted,” said Stacey Jackson, president of Local 856, which represents the 1,350 postal workers in Manitoba.

“But we’re not giving up on the 840,000 (households) that are still out in the cold because they don’t have the door- to-door anymore.”

The union now believes it can start planning a future with the Crown agency, including concepts such as using rural post offices in towns without banks for online and postal banking services.

“In the past, every time we’ve tried to negotiate with them, they’ve said we can’t negotiate new services without a mandate from the government. So we’re really hoping this (announcement) puts an end to that and we can start talking about how to generate new services and new revenues,” Jackson said.

A Liberal-dominated House of Commons committee recommended more than a year ago the agency devise a plan to reinstate door-to-door delivery for households converted since 2014, but Canada Post estimated the price tag for doing that would reach $195 million, plus ongoing costs of about $90 million annually.

— with files from The Canadian Press

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca