On Monday October 20, 2014, Canada Post stopped delivering mail door-to-door to the first of 74,000 addresses in ten communities across the country.
This was the first in a set of actions that will see the Crown Corporation follow through on the Harper government’s decision to end home mail delivery across Canada as a cost cutting measure.
All home mail delivery is scheduled to be phased out by 2019.
This is not a move that has gone unchallenged, as the union that represents Canadian postal workers quickly launched a Federal Court challenge against Canada Post’s decision to end its home delivery.
In its place, Canada Post hopes to install mail superboxes. While the norm in newly build subdivisions, they would basically be a first for many city dwellers.
The case hinges, in part, on the arguement that the elimination of mail delivery violates Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees equality rights for groups like disabled citizen who may have trouble accessing the “community” boxes.
Another major glitch in Harper’s plan to phase in these mail superboxes seems to be their susceptibility to theft.
Reports have been coming in from across the country that these superboxes are being raided by thieves. They have apparently even outsmarted the new and improved security measures put in place because of ongoing theft complaints.
In a CBC investigation, the news agency reported that these mail superboxes have been raided in British Columbia thousands of times – with more than 4,800 incidents reported in 130 communities between 2008 and 2013.
This information was collected from a CBC filed Freedom of Information request.
In one case investigated by the CBC, “Surrey B.C. resident Craig Findlay, 60, said his community mailbox has been plagued by ‘non-stop break-ins’ over the past decade, often in broad daylight.
“The doors are left wide open — the two big panel doors — and obviously mail missing. Looks like mail fraud-type people looking for phony IDs,”he said.
Canada Post spokeswoman Anick Losier stated that the cases of mail theft from mail superboxes is still, “relatively low.”
“The best thing we can recommend to our customers is never to leave mail overnight, because that’s where generally most of these incidents occur,” he suggested.
Regarding postal security at Canada Post, “Security and Investigation Services is a federal investigative body whose primary mandate is to protect the mail, information, personnel and assets of Canada Post. Postal inspectors play a vital role by investigating mail, information and identity theft; damage to Canada Post property; fraud; threats to employees and mail related criminal offences.”
You can sign a petition to Save Canada Post at this link.
As of Sunday April 19, 2015, the petition had 214,960 signatures.
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