Canada Post suspending community mailbox program

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This article was published 26/10/2015 (3814 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Map shows preliminary locations for community mailboxes planned for summer 2015, according to data from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Residents with postal codes beginning in R2R and R2X were expected to see a roll-out on July 20, while residents in R2N and R2M saw roll-out begin Aug. 17.

OTTAWA — Door-to-door mail delivery in Canada has been issued a stay of execution, but those already living with community mailboxes won’t be getting their former service back.

At least not yet.

In a statement released late Monday, Canada Post said it will temporarily suspend any further community mailbox installations while it awaits further consultation with the new Liberal government.

“We will work collaboratively with the Government of Canada to determine the best path forward given the ongoing challenges faced by the Canadian postal system,” the statement said.

The move means nearly half a million households that were to be converted over the next two months will keep their current mail service.

But those already converted over the last 10 months will not get door-to-door service back — at least not under Canada Post’s current plan.

“Efforts are now underway to place the comprehensive program on hold in an orderly fashion,” said the Canada Post statement.

“Customers impacted by this decision will receive a letter within the next few weeks advising them of the status of their mail delivery service.”

Prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau pledged during the campaign to revisit the Conservative government decision to end door-to-door delivery and conduct a review of Canada Post operations. Although Trudeau won’t be sworn into office until Nov. 4, the Crown corporation already said Monday it is putting on hold a five-year plan to convert 5.1 million households to community mailbox delivery rather than door-to-door service. About half a million households had already been converted, including in several Winnipeg neighbourhoods such as the Maples, Tyndall Park, Garden City, West Kildonan and St. Vital. The City of Selkirk switched over last week.

Those who have already been converted will keep using community mailboxes but anyone who still has door-to-door delivery by the end of this month will keep it for now.

Winnipeg North Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux said he is pleased to see action coming so quickly on this. He said it did come up on the doorstep during the campaign in neighbourhoods that hadn’t yet been switched over.

“I think this is the responsible thing to do given the controversy,” said Lamoureux.

He said he did not know whether Canada Post undertook this decision on its own or whether Trudeau or anyone from the Liberal team asked them to do so.

Glenn Bennett, president of CUPW Winnipeg, which represents postal workers, was pleasantly surprised.

“This is positive change,” said Bennett. “It’s a step forward. Let’s hope it keeps up and they convert back the ones they switched over.”

That is not currently in the plan. Since Canada Post first announced its plan to end door-to-door deliver in December 2013, about half a million Canadian households have been switched over and they will remain with the new community mailbox system.

But plans to convert another 460,000 households by the end of the year will be halted, as will the plans for another million in 2016. There were 5.1 million households still receiving door-to-door delivery when the process started, mainly in established urban neighbourhoods. About two-thirds of Canadian households already used community mailboxes, although in Winnipeg, only about one-third of households had community mailboxes prior to the changeover.

Canada Post hoped it would save money by switching all household mail to community mailboxes. Letter mail volumes have plummeted in the last decade as people turn more to email and text messaging to communicate. That has been offset by an increase in parcel delivery thanks to online shopping.

Canada Post reported an operating loss of $193 million in 2013. A year later, it reported an operating surplus of $194 million. In the first two quarters of 2015, the Crown corporation reported a loss of $7 million total, driven by substantial declines in letter mail. Letter mail was down 102 million pieces in the first half of this year, a drop of 7.2 per cent over 2014 and the highest rate of decline since letter mail volumes peaked in 2006.

Canada Post said it handled nearly 1.2 billion fewer pieces of mail in 2013 than in 2006.

Canada Post Group reported in May that letter mail volumes fell 8.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, or by 41 million pieces, compared with the same period a year earlier.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers will be pushing the Liberal government to reverse the cuts to postal services that have been made so far, said the organization’s national president.

“I think the people of this country spoke quite clearly last Monday,” said Mike Palecek.

“We also need to look at restoring the home mail delivery to those who have already lost it,” Palecek added.

“And we need to look at having a public mandate review for Canada Post about exactly what direction we want this Crown corporation to go.”

CUPW has been pushing Canada Post to expand its business into ventures such as postal banking services, similar to those adopted in other countries including the United Kingdom and France.

The decision to convert to community mailboxes was hugely controversial, resulted in thousands of signatures on petitions submitted to the government, and many rallies across the country.

Some Liberal MPs said they were getting an earful from constituents who wanted to know why the boxes were still being installed.

There were several localized protests against the installations in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador, with some people defiantly taking to standing or lying on dirt piles to prevent workers from placing cement foundations for the mailboxes.

Canada Post, however, was adamant that it was moving ahead with the mailbox conversions, telling CUPW late last week — after the election results were known — that it would not back away from the plan. It also placed ads to hire door-to-door canvassers to sell the merits of community mail delivery in British Columbia.

But late Monday, the Crown agency said it would rethink its plan.

Canada Post Group includes the Canada Post mail service, Purolator and other businesses.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

— with files from The Canadian Press