Canada Post suspends community mailbox conversion programme
Following the Liberal Party’s recent election victory, Canada Post has announced that it is temporarily suspending future deployment of the programme to convert door-to-door mail delivery to community mailboxes. In a statement issued yesterday (26 October), Canada Post added: “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 Canada Post statement continued: “Efforts are now underway to place the comprehensive program on hold in an orderly fashion. This involves roughly 460,000 addresses across the country which are currently in the process to be converted to community mailboxes.
“As a result, all conversions planned for November and December 2015 and those announced for 2016 will be placed on hold. Customers impacted by this decision will receive a letter within the next few weeks advising them of the status of their mail delivery service.
“In neighbourhoods where the 10-month internal and community conversion process is complete, customers will collect mail and parcels at their community mailbox. This includes customers set to begin receiving their mail and parcels in their boxes in October. We remain focused on maintaining reliable postal service to all Canadians without disruption.”
As Post&Parcel reported last Wednesday, the Liberal Party – headed by Justin Trudeau, the 43-year-old son of the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – surged through to a decisive election victory after starting the campaign in third place. The key point from a postal point of view is that the Liberals campaigned on an election promise to stop the cuts to home mail delivery and hold a review of Canada Post (although they were not quite so demonstrative on the issue as the more left-leaning New Democratic Party).
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) last week called for an “immediate halt” to the door-to-door delivery cuts that Canada Post had scheduled in the coming weeks.
